The NET Teaches us To Need it… it also challenges couples To reclaim life’s lulls” — Sherry Turkle

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rather than engaged by a partner — at least in an established relationship, where time together is especially important and, usually, precious. ( Rarely would anyone dare to be so direct in the getting- to- know- you stages of dating, researchers find, without courting the label “needy” or “controlling”.) It’s the sound of expectations being violated.

No longer accessories, smartphones, by their very embeddedness in our lives, bring the expectation of constant availability to everyone in our social network. But we also generally expect a partner’s interest and involvement when we’re together. And so smartphones, ipso facto, set us up for a clash of expectations and outright conflict, especially during intimate moments.

It’s less clear what expectations for accessibility are when partners are just hanging out together — riding in the car, relaxing in the living room. Nevertheless, as relationship researcher John Gottman has documented, the unstructured moments that partners spend in each other’s company, occasionally offering observations that invite conversation or laughter or some other response, hold the most potential for building closeness and a sense of connection. Each of those deceptively minor interludes is an opportunity for couples to replenish a reservoir of positive feelings that dispose them kindly to each other when they hit problems.

“Clinically, we hear a lot of partners complain, ‘ I feel neglected. You’re always checking your email, or surfing the web, or checking the news, even during dinner’,” says Gottman. Attention takes effort, and software capitalises on distractibility. “The real danger is that people are checking their devices so often they’re not noticing a partner’s bids for connection.”

Missing bids for connection is not the only effect of absent presence. In a study of technology use in classrooms, Jesper Aagaard, a PHD candidate at Aarhus University in Denmark, observed men and women ages 16 to 20 and then interviewed 25 of them in depth about non- classroom tech use. Technoference misaligns partners emotionally, he reports in AI & Society.

Their communication is marked by delayed responses, mechanical intonation, and lack of eye contact; all result in an unintentional misattunement. Gone are the rhythms of responsiveness and synchronicity of feelings that flow between partners, hallmarks of satisfying relationships. What comes across is indifference, says Aagaard. In the face of perceived apathy, partners keep restricting their responses, setting in motion a downward spiral of interaction.

— Psychology Today