The Open Mind, Hosted by Alexander Heffner
Oct 14, 2026 · 28 min · 10 segments
Author Hanna Kozlowska discusses her forthcoming book "U Up? An Intimate History of Online"
Alexander HeffnerHostAnd I'm thinking of that split screen of Harry and Sally, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal.
The idea of you up predates the electronic medium in the sense of people calling each other because they can't sleep because they're nostalgic or they romanticize the other and want to be in the same physical space and are not so the concept itself is not specific to the new millennium or 2026 or beyond but how have you found that concept to evolve because You have chronicled the history from, let's start with VHS tapes in the 70s and 80s.
And, you know, I guess the listings, what were they called again on the newspapers, the dating listings, personal ads.
And the through line is what has stayed the same and what has changed, right?
In fact, it probably is the most common way people have met throughout history, right, because we've had matchmakers.
but mediated through communication, through communication devices or communication technology, which includes the newspaper.
We often forget that print is a technology as well, right? Date back to the 18th century, basically.
That's how far back we've been able to identify the first personal ad in England, and then pretty shortly thereafter in the United States.
So it has, you know, evolved like this mediated dating has evolved with industrializing societies, right? We've had first, you know, industrializing nations like England and the U.S.
where there were huge societal shifts, people moving from rural areas to cities, suddenly ending up in a place where they didn't have any social networks, right? So there was a hole.
And What ended up happening is people started advertising in the same way that they advertised when they were looking for a horse or a room to rent or something, right? Because they just didn't have those inherent social structures of the village.
In the U.S., there's a fascinating history of how the personal ad helped colonize the West, basically, because the people who were in the West at first were single men.
and then the East had a surplus of women, right? Because they were domestics very often.
And the single men in the West would place ads, and then the women from the East would come over, right? So it's, you know, it's been, it's fulfilled this huge societal role throughout history.
And I'm thinking of that split screen of Harry and Sally, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal.
The idea of you up predates the electronic medium in the sense of people calling each other because they can't sleep because they're nostalgic or they romanticize the other and want to be in the same physical space and are not so the concept itself is not specific to the new millennium or 2026 or beyond but how have you found that concept to evolve because You have chronicled the history from, let's start with VHS tapes in the 70s and 80s.
And, you know, I guess the listings, what were they called again on the newspapers, the dating listings, personal ads.
And the through line is what has stayed the same and what has changed, right?
In fact, it probably is the most common way people have met throughout history, right, because we've had matchmakers.
but mediated through communication, through communication devices or communication technology, which includes the newspaper.
We often forget that print is a technology as well, right? Date back to the 18th century, basically.
That's how far back we've been able to identify the first personal ad in England, and then pretty shortly thereafter in the United States.
So it has, you know, evolved like this mediated dating has evolved with industrializing societies, right? We've had first, you know, industrializing nations like England and the U.S.
where there were huge societal shifts, people moving from rural areas to cities, suddenly ending up in a place where they didn't have any social networks, right? So there was a hole.
And What ended up happening is people started advertising in the same way that they advertised when they were looking for a horse or a room to rent or something, right? Because they just didn't have those inherent social structures of the village.
In the U.S., there's a fascinating history of how the personal ad helped colonize the West, basically, because the people who were in the West at first were single men.
and then the East had a surplus of women, right? Because they were domestics very often.
And the single men in the West would place ads, and then the women from the East would come over, right? So it's, you know, it's been, it's fulfilled this huge societal role throughout history.
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