Cell shock

“According to a 2014 Pew Research survey, 42 per cent of cellphone- owning 18- to 29- yearolds in serious relationships say their partner has been distracted by a mobile device while they were together”

Requiring effort and self- control, the human powers of attention, it turns out, are no match for devices that promise instant access to everyone and everything, along with real- time responsiveness. As MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle observes in Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, “The Net teaches us to need it.” It also challenges couples to reclaim life’s lulls, the unstructured moments of reflection and openness to each other on which feelings of closeness are built and sustained — the ones most prone to digital intrusion.

A DEARTH OF DISCLOSURE “I’ve been in practice for 15 years,” says Chicago psychologist Nicole Martinez, “and technology has become a significant issue for couples only over the past five years.” In one study of young married women, 70 per cent reported faceto- face conversations were stopped in their tracks by a partner’s phone use or active texting. “Technoference,” family researcher Brandon Mcdaniel calls it — “everyday intrusions or interruptions in couple interactions or time spent together that occur due to technology.”

Mcdaniel, a newly minted PHD in human development from Penn State, along with Sarah Coyne of Brigham Young University, found that the women who experienced technoference in their relationship also encountered more couple conflict over tech use and diminished relationship satisfaction. Such dissatisfaction affects young adults trying to form relationships as well as people of all ages in established relationships. According to a 2014 Pew Research survey, 42 per cent of cellphone- owning 18- to 29- year- olds in serious relationships say their partner has been distracted by a mobile device while they were together, which is more than the 25 per cent of all couples reporting such problems. And 18 percent of young adults argue over the amount of time spent online.

It’s not just that we have only so much time and attention. Smartphones actually transform interpersonal processes. In a much- discussed 2014 study, Virginia Tech psychologist Shalini Misra and her team monitored the conversations of 100 couples in a coffee shop and identified “the iphone Effect”: the mere presence of a smartphone, even if not in use — just as an object in the background — degrades private conversations, making partners less willing to disclose deep feelings and less understanding of each other, she and her colleagues reported in Environment and Behavior.

With people’s consciousness divided between what’s in front of them and the immense possibility symbolised by smartphones, face- to- face interactions lose the power to fulfill. Mobile phones are “undermining the character and depth” of the intimate exchanges we cherish most, says Misra. Partners are unable to engage each other in a meaningful way.

On or off, smartphones are also a barrier to establishing new relationships, observe Andrew Przybylski and Netta Weinstein of the University of Essex in England. When they assigned pairs of strangers to discuss either casual or meaningful events, the presence of a smartphone, even outside the visual field, derailed the formation of relationships — especially if the participants were asked to talk about something personally significant. Smartphones “inhibited the development of interpersonal closeness and trust and reduced the extent to which individuals felt understanding and empathy from their partners,” the team reports in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. Subversion of the conditions of intimacy, they believe, happens outside of conscious awareness.

ABSENT PRESENCE Misra argues that smartphones fragment human consciousness. The lower quality of conversation in the presence of smartphones and the diminished empathy come about through our habitual use