The way you use your mobile device around your family can affect your relationships. Cell phones can make you feel more connected, but they also can distract you and your family from connecting with each other in person. While some people need to check their phones for work or emergency purposes, it’s important to model and prioritize making meaningful connections through face-to-face communication.
We live in a world where communication through modern technology is almost required. Everywhere people are texting, emailing, checking social media, writing blogs and tweeting. It’s hard to go anywhere without seeing someone using a phone or the Internet to connect with others. In some ways, our phones help us create and maintain relationships: They help you find companionship, let people look into the eyes of family and friends who can't be with them, and connect lovers across vast expanses of land and sea. Still, the use and even presence of a smartphone during in-person interactions can lessen the quality of those moments.
Let’s take for example two individuals in a relationship. If the couple spends more time communicating and spending time through texting, there is a loss of affection in the relationship. They miss out on the intimacy of actually spending quality face to face time with someone. Conversations can become misinterpreted, which can lead to ‘drama’ and relationship/friendship problems. Texting and social media allows people to hide behind screens and to not truly express themselves for who they are. The unspoken subtext of checking text messages in front of friends is: “Somewhere else there is someone who I care about more than you. I want to know what they have to say more than what you have to say to me now.” The idea of being present in the moment is disappearing. Quality time with friends and family suffers. But before you know it or realize it, you might be using a good chunk of the time you're supposed to be spending with your partner or children focusing on your phone instead of on your family. And considering how busy families are today, all the time we spend on phones is a heavy price to pay. "The more precious your time is, the more you need to be vigilant about how you spend it.
Statistics show that it erodes our relationships, our interaction with our spouse and children and our relationships are not as good as we may think. We may picture ourselves as multitasking machines, doing a good job with everything all at the same time. But what we may not realize is that attention has limited capacity. When you're with someone and you're on the phone at the same time, you are where the phone is—in the virtual world. It's not quantity; it's quality. If you're with your child for five hours but you are on the phone constantly during that time, it's not really spending time with them. And kids agree. An annual survey conducted by the children's magazine Highlights found that 62% of kids aged 6 to 12 said their parents are distracted when trying to talk to them, with cell phone use being the top culprit. Think about how it feels to be ignored—it's certainly not a feeling you'd wish on your children.
We have enough things that interfere with our family time—busy work schedules, homework, extracurricular activities. Research shows that many people often lose track of time when they're on their cell phones (understandable considering how many things we can do on these devices, from checking news and sports scores to seeing what friends are posting on social media sites, not to mention getting email and texts). When you spend time on the phone, you have that much less time to spend fully engaging and giving your attention to your spouse and kids. The other thing to consider when you're a parent who is constantly connected to their phone, kids learn by watching what we do. Even young children, more of whom are getting cell phones at younger ages, are likely to pick up on the way a parent might engages with their phone and adopting that behavior.
Clearly, texting is the preferred method of communication among young people, and that trend is moving upward toward adults, who are also texting much more frequently. Teens are in the stage of their life where they’re learning so if you don’t learn to have good communication skills, then when you become an adult you will have a harder time asking for help, being proactive with things in your life and knowing how to have good face-to-face relationship in life. There is also the complaints that our new digital skills impact our ability to write properly. Studies show that homework is interrupted and children become distracted when they receive notifications of a new chat messages, texts, or emails.
What happens when we become too dependent on our mobile phones? We lose our ability to have deeper, more spontaneous conversations with others, changing the nature of our social interactions in alarming ways. Technology is making us feel more and more isolated, even though it promised to make us more connected. Because conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do. It’s where empathy is born, where intimacy is born—because of eye contact, because we can hear the tones of another person’s voice, sense their body movements, sense their presence. It’s where we learn about other people. But, without meaning to, without having made a plan, we’ve actually moved away from conversation in a way that research is showing is it's hurting us. How are cell phones and other technologies hurting us? 88% of Americans say that during their last social interaction, they took out a phone, and 82% said that it deteriorated the conversation they were in. Basically, we’re doing something that we know is hurting our interactions. Studies show if you put a cell phone into a social interaction, it does two things: First, it decreases the quality of what you talk about, because you talk about things where you wouldn’t mind being interrupted, which makes sense, and, secondly, it decreases the empathic connection that people feel toward each other. So, even something as simple as going to lunch and putting a cell phone on the table decreases the emotional importance of what people are willing to talk about, and it decreases the connection that the two people feel toward one another.
Our cell phones make us promises that are like gifts from a benevolent genie—that we will never have to be alone, that we will never be bored, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be, and that we can multitask, which is perhaps the most seductive of all. That ability to put your attention wherever you want it to be has become the thing people want most in their social interactions. Actually allowing yourself a moment of boredom is crucial to human interaction and it’s crucial to your brain as well—that feeling that you don’t have to commit yourself 100 percent and you can avoid the terror that there will be a moment in an interaction when you’ll be bored. When you’re bored, your brain isn’t bored at all—it’s replenishing itself, and it needs that down time. We’re very susceptible to cell phones, and we even get a neurochemical high from the constant stimulation that our phones give us. Our poor brains!
We live in a world where communication through modern technology is almost required. Everywhere people are texting, emailing, checking social media, writing blogs and tweeting. It’s hard to go anywhere without seeing someone using a phone or the Internet to connect with others. In some ways, our phones help us create and maintain relationships: They help you find companionship, let people look into the eyes of family and friends who can't be with them, and connect lovers across vast expanses of land and sea. Still, the use and even presence of a smartphone during in-person interactions can lessen the quality of those moments.
Let’s take for example two individuals in a relationship. If the couple spends more time communicating and spending time through texting, there is a loss of affection in the relationship. They miss out on the intimacy of actually spending quality face to face time with someone. Conversations can become misinterpreted, which can lead to ‘drama’ and relationship/friendship problems. Texting and social media allows people to hide behind screens and to not truly express themselves for who they are. The unspoken subtext of checking text messages in front of friends is: “Somewhere else there is someone who I care about more than you. I want to know what they have to say more than what you have to say to me now.” The idea of being present in the moment is disappearing. Quality time with friends and family suffers. But before you know it or realize it, you might be using a good chunk of the time you're supposed to be spending with your partner or children focusing on your phone instead of on your family. And considering how busy families are today, all the time we spend on phones is a heavy price to pay. "The more precious your time is, the more you need to be vigilant about how you spend it.
Statistics show that it erodes our relationships, our interaction with our spouse and children and our relationships are not as good as we may think. We may picture ourselves as multitasking machines, doing a good job with everything all at the same time. But what we may not realize is that attention has limited capacity. When you're with someone and you're on the phone at the same time, you are where the phone is—in the virtual world. It's not quantity; it's quality. If you're with your child for five hours but you are on the phone constantly during that time, it's not really spending time with them. And kids agree. An annual survey conducted by the children's magazine Highlights found that 62% of kids aged 6 to 12 said their parents are distracted when trying to talk to them, with cell phone use being the top culprit. Think about how it feels to be ignored—it's certainly not a feeling you'd wish on your children.
We have enough things that interfere with our family time—busy work schedules, homework, extracurricular activities. Research shows that many people often lose track of time when they're on their cell phones (understandable considering how many things we can do on these devices, from checking news and sports scores to seeing what friends are posting on social media sites, not to mention getting email and texts). When you spend time on the phone, you have that much less time to spend fully engaging and giving your attention to your spouse and kids. The other thing to consider when you're a parent who is constantly connected to their phone, kids learn by watching what we do. Even young children, more of whom are getting cell phones at younger ages, are likely to pick up on the way a parent might engages with their phone and adopting that behavior.
Clearly, texting is the preferred method of communication among young people, and that trend is moving upward toward adults, who are also texting much more frequently. Teens are in the stage of their life where they’re learning so if you don’t learn to have good communication skills, then when you become an adult you will have a harder time asking for help, being proactive with things in your life and knowing how to have good face-to-face relationship in life. There is also the complaints that our new digital skills impact our ability to write properly. Studies show that homework is interrupted and children become distracted when they receive notifications of a new chat messages, texts, or emails.
What happens when we become too dependent on our mobile phones? We lose our ability to have deeper, more spontaneous conversations with others, changing the nature of our social interactions in alarming ways. Technology is making us feel more and more isolated, even though it promised to make us more connected. Because conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do. It’s where empathy is born, where intimacy is born—because of eye contact, because we can hear the tones of another person’s voice, sense their body movements, sense their presence. It’s where we learn about other people. But, without meaning to, without having made a plan, we’ve actually moved away from conversation in a way that research is showing is it's hurting us. How are cell phones and other technologies hurting us? 88% of Americans say that during their last social interaction, they took out a phone, and 82% said that it deteriorated the conversation they were in. Basically, we’re doing something that we know is hurting our interactions. Studies show if you put a cell phone into a social interaction, it does two things: First, it decreases the quality of what you talk about, because you talk about things where you wouldn’t mind being interrupted, which makes sense, and, secondly, it decreases the empathic connection that people feel toward each other. So, even something as simple as going to lunch and putting a cell phone on the table decreases the emotional importance of what people are willing to talk about, and it decreases the connection that the two people feel toward one another.
Our cell phones make us promises that are like gifts from a benevolent genie—that we will never have to be alone, that we will never be bored, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be, and that we can multitask, which is perhaps the most seductive of all. That ability to put your attention wherever you want it to be has become the thing people want most in their social interactions. Actually allowing yourself a moment of boredom is crucial to human interaction and it’s crucial to your brain as well—that feeling that you don’t have to commit yourself 100 percent and you can avoid the terror that there will be a moment in an interaction when you’ll be bored. When you’re bored, your brain isn’t bored at all—it’s replenishing itself, and it needs that down time. We’re very susceptible to cell phones, and we even get a neurochemical high from the constant stimulation that our phones give us. Our poor brains!
Cell phone use while driving has become a growing danger: Texting and cell phone use has been shown to dramatically increase the chances of motor vehicle accidents leading to injury and even death.
- Driving while texting causes 1.6 million car accidents in the US every year.
- You are 20 times more likely to crash while texting and driving than you are when not using a cell phone (Virginia Tech)
- Texting while has the same effect on your driving reaction time as if you had consumed four beers in a single hour (Drivesafeonline.org)
- Texting distracts you long enough to travel the length of an entire football with your eyes off the road, driving at 55 mph (Drivesafeonline.org)
- 35% of teens admit to texting and driving, even though 94% of them understand the dangers (AAA)
- 1 in 4 teens admit to responding to at least one text every time they drive (AAA)
- 10% of parents and 20% of teens admit to having multi-text conversations while driving (AAA)
- Teens who text while driving spend an average of 10% of their driving time outside of traffic lanes (Drivesafeonline.org).
- 20% of US drivers reported sending emails or text messages while on the road.
- 25% of all car crashes in the US involved the use of a cell phone.
We can still change! We can use our phones in ways that are better for our kids, our families, our work, and ourselves. The path ahead is not a path where we do without technology, but of living in greater harmony with it. Some first steps we can create sacred spaces—the kitchen, the dining room, the car—that are device-free and set aside for conversation. When you have lunch with a friend or colleague or family member, don’t put a phone on the table between you. Make meals a time when you are there to listen and be heard AND BE IN THE PRESENT.
Once you’ve given some thought to your own cell phone use (and what you might be modeling for your family), think about your own rules you want your family to follow when you’re together.
Once you’ve given some thought to your own cell phone use (and what you might be modeling for your family), think about your own rules you want your family to follow when you’re together.
