6 Ways to Tell If It’s Time to Break Up With Your Phone
Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that sneaks up on us out of nowhere. All of sudden it’s the night before and we find ourselves running all over town trying to get everything together— finding a table at a halfway decent restaurant, running across town in search of a fresh bouquet… doing whatever we can to make the day special for our significant other.
Say what you will about the stress of Valentine’s Day, it’s a great time to appreciate and cherish our romantic relationships. And it got us thinking about how the relationships we have with our smartphones can get in the way of our real life relationships. As helpful as our phones can be when it comes to meeting new people, they often get in the way and make it harder to sustain healthy and happy relationships in real life. How many times have you found yourself sitting next to your significant other, yet never speaking to each other because you’re both on your phones? Or sitting silently at the dinner table with your family as your kids play on their tablets and your partner replies to work emails?
The Importance of IRL
The science is in and everybody agrees that our friends, our family, our colleagues, and our social circles make us happier, healthier and more successful. As the Harvard Women’s Health Watch reported, “Dozens of studies have shown that people who have satisfying relationships with family, friends and their community are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer.” Indeed, social interactions help us cope with stress and handle the inevitable major life changes that come and go.
Psychotherapist and relationship expert Esther Perel similarly explains that, “Mental health is deeply influenced by relational health—ultimately it’s the quality of your relationships that determines the quality of your life.” Simply put, sustaining good relationships means ultimately leading a better life. But, how we interact, how we meet people and how we date have all been dramatically changed by smartphones. So, we’ve had to alter the way that we develop and maintain relationships, especially when it comes to dating. With so much of our social and dating lives migrated onto our digital devices, it’s no surprise that in the last decade more people report feelings of isolation and depression. Our phones, even with all their social and dating apps, can make us feel even more detached from our friends and loved ones.
So what should we do? Maybe it’s time to break up with our phones.
Before you freak out, hear us out. Let’s be honest, our phones are needy. They crave our attention all day, everyday and they don’t really give us much in return (except for a sore neck, a big indentation in our couch, and a few random meme-induced chuckles). To put it bluntly, our phones are the worst significant others on the planet. And some of us spend more time looking at our phone screens than we do with our actual significant others. So, we put together a quick list of 6 ways to tell if you need to break up with your phone.
6 Ways to Tell If It’s Time to Break Up With Your Phone
- Your thumbs are sore and you find yourself asking your doctor about early onset arthritis.
- You’ve given your phone a cute nickname. These are for friends and pets… not phones.
- The only communication you have with your best friend is a mile-long chain of shared memes.
- You have to carry multiple extra battery packs with you at all times so you can recharge throughout the day without missing a single tweet in your stream.
- You’re always rewinding your “favorite” show because you keep looking down at your phone instead of actually watching the episode.
- You haven’t eaten hot food in a month because you spend 45 minutes taking a pic of it, cropping it, adding the right filters, thinking of a clever caption and posting it to IG.
BOGO for your S.O.
If you’re ready to break up with your phone, or even just want to strike a healthier balance now is a great time to get a Palm for you and your boo! From now until 2/17, everything on Palm.com is buy one, get one 50% off, so you can buy one Palm for $299 and get your second Palm for 50% off. That’s a huge deal on our little phone and we hope you’ll take advantage… it could do wonders for your relationships.
*Discount applies to the lesser priced item.