Not now, dear, I’m reading my e-mail

IT has brought continents together and transformed the way we shop and keep abreast of world events and the weather. But the digital revolution may have had an unforeseen consequence, say researchers — a marked deterioration in the average couple’s sex life.

Figures published by Professor David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at Cambridge University, point to a sharp decline in the frequency with which British couples have sex in the years since the birth of the internet and the rise of smartphones.

A typical heterosexual couple now has sex just three times a month on average, Spiegelhalter reveals in his book Sex By Numbers . That compares with four times a month according to similar research conducted in 2000, while in 1990 the figure stood at five times a month.

Spiegelhalter said that while it was difficult to explain the apparent national passion drought, one reason for the lack of intimacy could be the increasing encroachment of work into private life made possible by the mobile revolution.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Wom- an’s Hour: “People are checking their e-mails all the time; you do not have this same sort of quiet, empty time that there used to be.”

Spiegelhalter’s book also examines the disparity between the average number of sexual partners men claim to have — 14 — and those women admit to have had: just seven.

He said this could be more to do with poor maths than deliberate exaggeration. He also suggested that women may simply prefer to forget some relationships. — © The Daily Telegraph, London