Doing this once in a while is unlikely to be harmful (after all, we all need to occasionally wait
for an important email from work or answer a text from a friend about something urgent or timely).
But the problem occurs when you check your texts and email every few minutes or several times an hour,
and all these "just gonna check my messages" moments add up to a large amount of time spent on the phone.
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," says James A. Roberts, Ph.D., professor of marketing
at Baylor University and the author of Too Much of a Good Thing: Are You Addicted to Your Cell Phone? His advice is: We have
to set spouse-to-spouse or parent-to-child time that's free of cell phones.
When you are with someone and he is constantly checking, scrolling, texting, or engaged with the cell phone in his hand, it
can feel like you are not really fully with that person. "When you have a conversation, it sends a clear message that you are
playing second fiddle," says Dr. Roberts. Not only is this behavior rude, but it can damage the quality of that relationship.
Dr. Roberts' study on phubbing, conducted at the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, in Waco, Texas, found that
nearly half the adults surveyed reported being phubbed by their partner, more than a third said that they felt depression as
a result of this behavior, and almost a quarter said that it caused conflict in their relationships.
"Relationships are the cornerstone of our happiness," says Dr. Roberts. "Phubbing makes us feel bad, but even worse, it leads
to unhappiness and depression." There's even an evolutionary explanation for why we feel so uncomfortable when we're with someone
who's not fully there with us in that moment.
"It's a violation of social conditioning," says David Greenfield, Ph.D., founder of The Center for Internet and Technology Addiction
and an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, in Farmington, Connecticut,
"It's an uncomfortable feeling when behavior is not predictable. When someone is in a room with us and is on the phone, we feel like
we are in an unsafe situation on a primitive level."
Try these strategies for ways to cut back on your cell phone usage.
Establish a rule in your house that there will be no using phones (or emailing or posting to social media, etc.) after a certain time at night.
If you feel like you're having a hard time not using the phone constantly, consider seeking help. Research shows that cell phone addiction is real,
and if you feel that you don't have control, talk to a therapist who specializes in addiction counseling.
Keep dinnertime free of cell phones, and use it as an opportunity to reconnect with each other and talk about your day.?
Keep time with your spouse?like date night or catching up on the day before bed?free of cell phones.
Use an app to monitor how much your kids use their phones, and use it to track your own use.