Are You Connected In Your Relationships?
How technology connects and disconnects us.
Marriage and family are two important definitions in our lives because these units are critically significant for human social health. And today, let's talk about how to build healthy relationships in a time when people experiencing a huge impact of the technology in all aspects of their lives.
Technology becomes more and more advanced every day, new gadgets become available each year, and they are an inseparable part of our social life.
According to a Nielsen report for 2014, the average American adult spends 11 hours per day with electronic media. What is more important, that day by day technology is not only the helper that makes things easier but it also negatively affects real life. According to researchers of Baylor University Hankamer School of Business, spending most of the time using cellphone can ruin personal life. How often your "real" conversations occur? Less and less every day?
According to Dr. Alex Lickerman, there is a paradox in computer-mediated communication, because the more people using technology for communication, or by a mistake substitute real communication with effective media communication, the more isolated they feel. Couples interact less, their relationships are often existing for the Instagram account but not for them. Instead of spending a romantic evening, married couples scroll down their Facebook feed and "like" posts of others, or read the news, or watch Youtube videos. They took phones even to the bedroom, and still browsing the internet before falling asleep.
According to researcher Christina Leggett, "Disconnection in relationships tends to lead to feelings of dissatisfaction and comprises an individual's sense of safety, attachment, and control." People care less, couples often lose their deep connection, interact less, lose interest, passion, and love in their relationships. When a couple has an interaction, while their phones are nearby, they are not so sensitive - nor do they fully pay intention to their partner.
Also, when one of the partners is spending time using any type of technology (tablet, phone or computer), the other one feels dumped, according to The International Journal of Neuro psychotherapy study. Unfortunately, the proportion of couples who feel this negative impact of the Internet on their lives has increased over time.
Couples are risking to loose long-lasting relations by using their devices too often. But, according to the Pew Research Center survey (2014), for couples who partnered more than 10 years, and reached a more stable phase of their relationship, major impact of the technology is only 5% in a contrast for those who live together less than 10 years it is as high as 15% .
In a time when technology plays such a huge role in human lives, it is very important to hold the balance between living in a virtual and a real world. The best use of technology would be to use it in order to connect with loved ones when, for example, they live a distance away.
But it would be reasonable to turn off the phone and put it outside of the bedroom when you go to sleep. Be present, enjoy life, smile to your loved ones, care about them, spend time with them without your phone, practice yoga together, explore new places, talk a lot, discover each other again and again, fall in love in reality, not in the virtual world.
Because otherwise even in marriage people could feel lonely.
