ove, come now, put down
your phone’ – it’s a sentence
I hear all too often from
the other side of the bed.
‘I’m just setting my alarm,’ I say,
continuing to scroll mindlessly. Truth
is, my brain is still active from the
day’s goings on, and I’m trying to
quiet it by catching up on what has
transpired on social media in the last
couple of hours. Of course, stillness of
mind is the last thing I’m achieving by
bombarding myself
with more and more
back-lit information.
After all, blue light
has been proven to
hamper sleep.
But sleep is not the
main concern in this
scenario – it’s nooky.
By the time I’ve
fi nished ‘setting my
alarm’, my previously
amorous other half is
fast asleep. And I’m
wide awake.
I’m not alone. Paul
Levy, the author of
Digital Inferno and
a senior researcher
at the University of
Brighton, has studied
the digital world
for years. ‘I began
studying the effects of
our virtual lives on our
physical relationships,
and have since spoken
to hundreds of couples
whose partnerships
have been threatened
by their addiction to
technology,’ he told
a UK newspaper. ‘For
some, the cause is
what I call “wretched
contentment”:
spending evenings
watching TV, all the
while constantly
checking phones
without talking. It’s
pleasant, but it’s not
fulfi lling. As the quality of our physical
connections gets diluted over time, we
adjust, expecting less. We forget what
real romance is.’
Romance is one thing; sex, another.
A 2016 Durex survey of 2 000 adults
revealed that 41% of people are less
JAN/FEB 2018 MARIECLAIRE.CO.ZA 47
sex
likely to instigate sex if their partner
is on their phone in bed, with the
majority even admitting that they
actually used their phones during sex.
(Okay, there’s some hope for me then- at least I’m not liking posts mid-sex).
But it’s not only phones that come
between us. While I may be the
slightly-obsessed-with-social-media
half in our relationship, my partner
is often engrossed in his laptop –
replying to work emails at all hours on
the weekends, barely
engaging with me
when I ask a question,
a nod here and an ‘uh
huh’ there.
Then there are the
Netfl ix marathons that
can easily shave off a
couple of hours in the
bedroom that could
be, um, better spent.
‘The more we get out
of practice at being
with other human
beings, the scarier
physical closeness
becomes, chipping
away at our happiness.
We all need deep
communication and
we’re not getting it,’
says Paul.
Technology is
intrusive – there’s no
denying that. And the
way it permeates our
relationships and sex
lives can be damaging
on more than one
level. ‘Cellphones and
laptops are about the
worst things invented
when it comes to
boudoir dynamics.
Feng Shui has long
held that couples need
to keep the electrical
energy in their
bedroom in check, as
this makes for better
sleep and overall
ambiance, on at least
a subconscious level,’ Dr Yvonne K
Fulbright tells Sheknows.com. ‘[Tech
gives] partners more to get into and
distracted by, which prevents them
connecting, talking and touching. It
has them turned on to others with
social media or work dominating
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