Step Away From the Screen!
Social Media: Hazardous to Your
Marriage
“Social media can help
you keep in touch with loved ones near and far, but it can also damage your
closest relationships. Like your
marriage.
According to research commissioned by
family law specialists, social media is so hazardous to relationships that one
in seven married people said he or she would consider divorce based on a
spouse’s behavior on sites such as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter. Nearly one in four couples
said they argue at least once a week over social media, and 17 percent reported
fighting every day because of it.
Plenty of folks who don’t quarrel over
social media use are still suspicious about it:
Nearly 50 percent of the people surveyed admitted they secretly check
their spouse’s Facebook account, and 14 percent said they were specifically
looking for evidence of marital infidelity.
An earlier survey of U.S. divorce lawyers
found much the same thing, with 81 percent reporting that social media played
an increasing role in their divorce cases.
From
Focus on the Family’s ‘Thriving Family’ magazine
Family media
BITS & BYTES – Oct/Nov 2015
These statistics are alarming – but not too
surprising. All you have to do is go to
a restaurant and notice the few people at tables actually talking to each
other. I’m always amazed at the number
of people glued to their cellphones – not talking on them but messaging, tweeting,
and texting while a real human being sits across from them, available for live
conversation. Though the millennials are
the worst for constant phone attachment, I still see plenty of baby boomers who
have gotten sucked into this alarming “fad that is not going away.” It’s gotten so bad that people become
panicked and frazzled when they misplace their cellphone for a minute. Electronic devices have become the adult
pacifier that keeps people from talking while lulling them into a dangerous
place of complacency that is killing relationships.
I haven’t even begun to talk about Ipads and
computers and video games. They have
become a huge bone of contention between many couples (look at the statistics
above.) What has happened to our
society? Someone posted a picture on
Facebook of people walking around in a big city, all glued to their
cellphones. The caption read, “The
Zombie Apocalypse”. There’s a lot of
truth to that. My granddaughter was
visiting over the summer and went to play outside with some friends. She came back in thirty minutes, and I asked
her why she was home so soon. She said
they all had Ipads and were playing on them.
She felt excluded because she didn’t have one. She is nine years old.
Do you realize that while you are on your cellphone
you might miss your baby’s first steps…your child’s first baseball hit…your
husbands rare move to romance you…the moment before dinner boiled over the pot
onto the stove…the most amazing day your child had…your toddler saying “I love you”
for the first time…your grandfather’s last breath…just to name a very few.
I’m beginning to resent the constant intrusion of my
cellphone. Back in the day, the
telephone was reserved for your time at home. We could walk away from it with no guilt. We didn’t sit around and watch for it to ring or keep it glued to our
side. We spent our time concentrating on
getting together with our friends to talk with them in person. Oh yes, we would occasionally chat for hours
with our girlfriends on the phone – but that was actual talking. People don’t even do that so much these
days.
We need physical, live human contact to survive - not just a message on a screen. You may think you want to go live up in the mountains away from civilization, but how many people actually do it? Not many because we are programmed to need human contact. (Thanks Hal Hester!)
We need physical, live human contact to survive - not just a message on a screen. You may think you want to go live up in the mountains away from civilization, but how many people actually do it? Not many because we are programmed to need human contact. (Thanks Hal Hester!)
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