Maybe it’s Time to Divorce Your Phone

The divorce rate is, in recent years, the highest it has ever been, and even though it’s been slowly dropping over the past few years, experts are not sure whether this is anything but a small setback on an otherwise-increasing statistic.

Why, as the interconnected technology generation becomes a larger and larger portion of the population, does the divorce rate continue to stay so high? Well, it actually might be worth looking at technology itself.

Back in the pre-internet era (what many today would consider the dark ages), communication was inherently different. Talking to someone had to be done face to face, or via an inconvenient house phone that you were always battling siblings for. Seeing someone required you to drive across town and knock on a door. While someone was at work, you had no choice but to wait to be able to see them afterwards. Shopping together was an outing, and required planning. Letters took weeks in turnaround time.

Nowadays, however, everything is “made easier” through technology, and as a result, communication is cheaper. Send a text at 2PM while your spouse is working, and expect a response within 20 minutes. Fire up Skype or Facetime at 9PM when you want to see your girlfriend, but don’t want to put shoes on. Order flowers as a big romantic gesture from a pre-determined selection with a touch of a button from a florist’s app. Furniture ideas are browsed on Pinterest, reservations are made online and forwarded to the partner, and the list goes on and on. Convenient, sure, but ultimately impersonal.

It seems as if the biggest relationship there is between humans and devices, rather than between each other.

It’s an undeniable fact that physical presence to (being around) your significant other, and just generally doing active things together, can foster very strong feelings between a couple. It’s entirely possible, then, that when steps are taken to dumb-down the process or focus on convenience first, something can get lost in translation.

To prevent the youngest generation being filled with failed marriages, some tough questions are in order. A good one to start is: Out of all your recent communications with the person you love, how often did you even hear their voice?

Convenience can certainly be good, but who knows, maybe love is one of those things that shouldn’t be simplified.