This article was originally published by Forbes.com.
At a panel at SXSW in Austin Greg Liberman, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Spark Networks, the company that owns JDate, explained that in every stage of history there is one force that dictates the order of dating.
First there were the matchmakers, village leaders who set partners up and arranged marriages. In the 20th century they were replaced by the telephone, a device that allowed suitors to schedule dates whenever and with whomever they chose. The past decade saw the return of the matchmaker, but this time it was an invisible algorithm on a website. Online dating meant people had more potential dates and more opportunities for speaking with them.
And now, so soon after the last revolution, there is something that has changed dating as we know it once again: the smartphone.
Mobile has completely taken over dating. We meet people on apps and mobile versions of dating websites and get to know them directly through text and indirectly through Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn . In a lot of ways it has made things easier, providing vast amounts of choice and making communicating with potential partners so easy and convenient. But phones have also ushered in a new set of dating rules, ones that singles must know and conquer if they want to succeed.
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