{"id":1178,"date":"2017-12-28T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-28T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/?p=1178"},"modified":"2017-12-27T22:03:49","modified_gmt":"2017-12-27T20:03:49","slug":"what-do-you-do-when-his-phone-is-the-other-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/?p=1178","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Do When His Phone Is the Other Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you heard of street artist known as Banksy? He recently did a brilliant piece entitled \u201cMobile Lovers<\/a>,\u201d See above.<\/p>\n

In Banksy\u2019s most recent work we see a good-looking couple embracing, maybe coming together after a long day at work. Instantly obvious is that although they\u2019re hugging, they are worlds apart mentally\u2014both gazing deeply into their smartphones rather than at each other\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n

This \u201calone-together<\/a>\u201d theme is not so new anymore. Almost two-thirds of mobile subscribers in the U.S. alone use their smartphone and the presence of these gadgets in every area of life\u2014from the bedroom to the doctor\u2019s\u2014it means there is no avoidance of technology without a mindful choice. When there is a silence in the conversation with your spouse, it\u2019s just too easy to check Twitter. While every\u00a0media-outlet<\/a>\u00a0in the world has addressed the question of whether \u201cdigital interference\u201d is becoming a social problem, the question remains: Are our gadgets essentially getting in the way of intimacy?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an easy answer to this query: Yes and no. Just like so much of life, how we relate with technology is about humanizing balance.<\/p>\n

Have you ever sat around with a bunch of people sharing your beloved YouTube videos? It\u2019s hysterical, and it\u2019s extremely social. We laugh and joke, we look at each other, we riff on what others said. In this condition, technology is a vehicle for the coming together of\u00a0real-<\/em>people in\u00a0real<\/em>\u00a0relations.<\/p>\n

In Mobile Lovers, though, we see the shadier side, and I would like to propose that what transpires when we move from being really social with our technology to being\u00a0digitally-distracted<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0a loss of relationship fidelity<\/em>. In much the same way music enthusiasts warned of the loss of audio dependability in the movement from vinyl to cassettes to CDs and so forth, the digital split amongst family, friends or couples challenges the basic frequencies of communication and connection in a relationship.<\/p>\n

Make Your Relationship \u201cLossless\u201d:
\n<\/strong>Readers of my posts will know that there\u2019s a mountain of evidence linking high value relationships with health and well-being. When we lose relationship trustworthiness, what relationship rewards do we lose along with it? Here are a few illustrations:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Attention being looked-at,\u00a0being heartened<\/u>. Go back to the Bansky image. What kind of relationship is that?! It\u2019s absent any factual attention or substance. It\u2019s a low dependability hug.<\/li>\n
  2. Feeling understood and reinforced\u2014knowing that somebody gets your point of view and can back you when times are hard. Occasionally my spouse looks at her phone when I am telling her a story. I hate this with a passion\u2014it\u2019s like I am speaking to a wall. I do this too, and I am certain she hates too. Sometimes my child screams at me, \u201cI AM TALKING TO YOU, STOP TEXTING!\u201d At that moment, I feel very embarrassed and sad. It\u2019s hard work to listen and sympathize with another person, and we\u2019ve someway slipped into a national form of being halfway focused to each other most of the time. This is pretty disastrous.<\/li>\n
  3. Belonging and sanctuary\u2014when we\u2019re attended to, understood, reinforced, and acknowledged, we feel we fit-in. Belongingness is a sense of security, a sense that you are part of something steady and solid. This is what we mean when we say somebody is\u00a0our \u201crock.\u201d<\/a>She is there for me through thick and thin. Being there for someone involves presence, it requires showing up to deliver yourself. When our brain is on work, how can we be there for the children? When our eyes are on Twitter, how can we be there for our spouses?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    A Resolution in Three Questions:
    \n<\/strong>The pull-of-technology is quite strong. It is becoming gradually apparent that the\u00a0fear of missing out (FOMO)<\/u>\u00a0is tangible. We constantly, even obsessively, check mail and social-media through-out the day because these mediums operate on a variable reinforcement schedule, which means that these doses of electronic interaction are circulated unequally and unpredictably, keeping us continuously coming back for more. We\u2019re hardwired at a very profound level to respond positively to social rewards, and\u00a0the variable pattern of reinforcement is what preserves us tethered so strongly to our gadgets<\/u>. We can get another hit of e-social connection at any\u00a0moment. In\u00a0my\u00a0previous <\/u>article\u00a0on this subject I recommended ways to get off technology more often. Though, to actually use technology well, we need to vigorously and persistently fit technology into our lives without falling into the Mobile Lovers snare.<\/p>\n

    We need to be mindful of what we are doing and how we are cooperating. If you stop once each morning and evening to ask yourself 3 questions, you can carry relationships front and center in your life. These are my 3 questions:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Am I giving myself to my family and friends adequately? Am I there for them most of the time?<\/li>\n
    2. Am I too into my iPhone or other devices? If so, what precisely can I do to change it?<\/li>\n
    3. Do i balance my technology and using it to be social, or am I abnormally dedicated to updates, mails and texts and separating myself while submerged into them?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      We all have to challenge the Mobile Lovers problem. Personally, I think the best way is to \u201cchange yourself.\u201d It is a well-worn expression, sure, but I want high trustworthy relationships for myself and for all. The way to get it done is to start making some changes on our end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Have you heard of street artist known as Banksy? He recently did a brilliant piece entitled \u201cMobile Lovers,\u201d See above. In Banksy\u2019s most recent work we see a good-looking couple embracing, maybe coming together after a long day at work. Instantly obvious is that although they\u2019re hugging, they are worlds apart mentally\u2014both gazing deeply into …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1181,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[463,474,465,471,468,110,467,444,462,475,472,323,325,95,469,81,466,464,470,87],"class_list":["post-1178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1178"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1183,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178\/revisions\/1183"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1178"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tosayiloveyou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fyst_prominent_words&post=1178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}