Are you having an affair with your phone? I don’t mean that you are actually cheating with someone else. But, perhaps your phone is the other person in your relationship. The one who gets in the way and takes priority over your partner, friends or family.

The phone affair

Just look around you when you are at a restaurant, casual or elegant. You notice two people on a date and they look nice. The atmosphere is beautiful so they could be having a nice romantic evening together gazing into each other’s eyes. Instead of enjoying the moment they are both on their cell phones. They are not alone. There is someone else between them, their phones. It could be friends, family, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or their favorite place to shop. The phone is getting in the way of their relationship(s).

Loss of connection

In the evenings

Plenty of couples complain that they no longer connect. Phones, tablets and computers get in their way. It happens innocently enough. You notice that your partner is busy, so you pull out your phone and get on social media. Then when he or she is done doing what they are doing they notice you on your phone. So they go do something else. Before you know it their basic friendship starts to suffer.  They are no longer spending time together or enjoying each other’s company.

Dinner time

I hate to admit that I have also become one of the people who let the phone get in the way of interacting with my family. Just last night I was having dinner with my elderly parents and nephew. I only get to see them a few times a year as we live several hours away by plane. We were gazing at our phones. Even my 89-year-old dad is guilty of this. He said he always has it on him. Now in some ways this is a good thing, because if he falls or is hurt he can call for help. This shows the double-edged sword of cell-phone usage.

Holidays

I know there was Thanksgiving dinners where we had to agree to all put our phones on the coffee table so we would have to interact. In the good old days families sat down at the dinner table and spent time together. I even saw an article in the NY Times saying that there are coaches that teach people how to parent without using a cell phone. For those of you who grew up without cell phones, this may seem crazy that people need to learn how to do this.

Parenting

Another article told about a mom who saw the need to break up with her phone when she was holding her baby. She could have had a warm bonding moment, yet she was scrolling through her phone shopping. I’m also guilty of scrolling through the sale section of my favorite clothing store. My phone knows how to get to me with all the things that pop up that I’d like-just waiting there to tempt me at a weak moment.

I too have been out and seen parents on their phone vs. interacting with their kids. I can’t help but wonder how this affects attachment and parent-child relationships. It would be hard to imagine that it doesn’t hurt in some way. Instead of being there for your child, the cell phone takes precedent. How many accidents occur because a parent isn’t able to watch their child as closely. That is scary.

Horns

There was also something in the media about people developing horns in the back of their neck from cell phone usage. Supposedly some bone starts to grow out on the back of the skull due to their head being bent over so much from cell phone usage. However upon further reading the chiropractors said that this kind of bone spur develops in anyone who is bent over for long periods of time. It could be someone who does surgery, dental hygiene or massage therapy. We also need to remember that correlation doesn’t mean causation.

The bottom line is most of us are having affairs with our cell phones. We need to make the effort to put them away at meal times, set up time without our phones and be with our friends and family, to truly connect.

If you need to work on connecting with your family or friends, give me a call and we can get you to a better place in your relationships.

Take care,

Debbie