Category Archives: Coach

Would your relationships benefit from a tech diet? How can you be fully present when your attention is really on the screen and not the person in front of you? What’s worse is as a whole, is our society spending significantly more time in front of some sort of an electronic screen than we are in real live face to face contact?

I love my technology. I love Skype for talking to my daughters now in Japan and Morocco and Face Time for talking with my son. I use my laptop for learning French and of course there’s email and Facebook. I’m writing this on my office computer. I also love Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Chocolate Garcia ice cream. Yet just as I could not live on a diet of only ice cream I cannot live in a world where my only social interaction is over the internet. I also love long dinners with friends and face to face conversation and laughter with no screens present.

As a marriage and family therapist and coach, I now hear terms I never heard of five or ten years ago in counseling sessions. Clients read me text messages from their significant or ex-significant other during sessions. Clients complain that they cannot ever turn off their Blackberry’s as they must be available 24/7. Who even used the term 24/7 ten years ago? Spouses learn about affairs and other issues of contempt from cell phone call records and texts. Being unfriended on Facebook is often the final straw in the dissolution of a friendship or relationship.

Elizabeth Bernstein recently wrote and an article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Your BlackBerry or Your Wife.” She shares stories of families who sit at the dinner table all looking at their own screen on their iPhones, iPads, laptops, DVD’s and Blackberries. Family members give lots of connection and attention to the device but a serious lack of connection to other family members. She advocates going on a “tech cleanse” Turning off everything with screens for a week. She even notes that in an Italian study couples who have a TV in the bedroom have sex half as often as those who do not. Susan Gilchrest O’Neil, a family therapist in New York states, “Technology should be on the list of the top reasons why people divorce, along with money sex, and parenting.

Yes technology is amazing and I love it. Yet let’s not technology replace real face time? Can your Blackberry give you a hug or cuddle with you on a cold night? When is the last time you spent an hour with a friend or family member without a screen. Try your own tech cleanse. I advocate at least a screen free hour or two a night. Try unplugging for a whole day every weekend. What if you controlled all those electronic devices instead of letting them control your life?

Until next time,

Amy Barnes MMA MA LMHC
Amy is a relationship counselor and coach with over 15 years experience, specializing in supporting individuals and couples in transforming pain into joy.