Читать книгу Sex For Dummies - Pierre Lehu A., Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer - Страница 88

So here’s another dichotomy you face. You don’t want to be lonely and your smartphone offers you many different ways to alleviate your loneliness, but at the same time it’s causing your loneliness. Are you going to give up your smartphone? Not likely. It’s become too important as your calendar, GPS, music player, not to mention as a means of communication. So your phone is going to stay with you, but at the same time you’ve got to realize that when you’re using it as a crutch to avoid feeling lonely, you’re making matters worse. If you’re feeling lonely, go spend some time with some fellow human beings. Not on a date necessarily, though that would be good, but just hanging out would be fine too.

Of course, by hanging out with a friend I don’t mean two people together at a coffee shop, each staring at their phone. That’s the cause of the problem, not the solution. Put your phones away and talk to each other. (Someone needs to invent a condom for smartphones so that you can just wrap it up in order to promote good conversation!) If nothing else, it will give you practice so that when you’re on a date with someone you really want to make a connection with, you’ll be better able to do so without being distracted by that phone in your hand.

Research has shown that smartphone owners touch their phone 2,600 times a day. The harder you find it to put your phone aside, the more important it is to do so. If necessary, use the timer app on your phone to help you. Set it for 15 minutes, and then put your phone down. Turn off notifications that alert you to any form of contact. Then slowly add to the time your phone is out of your hands so that you can wean yourself off of it as a crutch. That way, when you’re on an actual date, you’ll have trained yourself to be able to put it away without having that constant nagging feeling that you should be staring at it.