How Phones Can be Destroyers of Relationships

Nowadays technology influences our daily lives dramatically. From children to adults everyone is seen carrying a technical device. According to this article a normal person uses their phone over 85 times in a day. We may not notice it, but this number seems unusually accurate. The author goes on to describe how the simple meal of dinner has changed. Usually dinner is supposed to be a time where the entire family can sit and chat about their day, whereas today everyone is around the dinner table watching the display of their phone. The author goes on to describe the reasoning behind this popular addiction. Most people try to hurl the question by just defending it as they use it in their leisure or “down” time. However, there are many other ways to enjoy ones off time, why just phones? Towards the end of the articles. The reader understands how to set boundaries and limits for oneself to enhance their life besides technology.

In this article, the issue of technology affecting our personal relationships is shown throughout the psychological perspective. The author goes to explain how phones can be destroyers of relationships because they do not satisfy the essential human needs a person possess. For example, one of them is secure attachment. Everyone likes to feel comforted in some such as a hug. It is because of this type of attachment that we are able to form trustworthy and long lasting relationships. In the article it states, “The theory of attachment, developed by John Bowlby in the 1960s, indicates that the quality of the attachment relationship forms the basis for emotional development (Colmer, Rutherford, & Murphy, 2011).” Also, another one of our human tendencies is the need to have control over a certain circumstance. When on a date, a person does not want their partner to stare at their phone the entire time, they would like to feel emotionally secured.

The scholarly article starts out with an engaging and relatable case, in which a lady takes her daughter, Julie, to see a doctor because of her daughter’s weird behavior. She explains how Julie is constantly on her phone and her attachment with family has lessened. The authors ask the reader to diagnose Julie and therefore enters the topic of social media and youth. They explain the negative consequences of social media these days including cyber bullying, sexting, and mental health consequences such as depression and loneliness.

This scholarly article showed an actual case study that was performed to study the effects of social media on youth and teens and to prove that the notion of missing out on personal things is influenced with the addiction of social media. The results in this case study correlated with signs of depression of teens that used social media frequently on a daily basis. The source stated, “For adolescents with depression, anhedonia and social anxiety, turning to online social interactions may be an easy way to socialize and avoid the disadvantages of face-to-face interactions.” Social media allows leeway for a teen to not be able to talk to someone face to face. Instead they can use mass group chats or their followers on Instagram or Snapchat to create “friends”.

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