Microprocessing
How Mindless Phone Use Ruins Your Relationships
Whether you’re at work, on a date, or with the family, put that thing away every now and then
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In Microprocessing, columnist Angela Lashbrook aims to improve your relationship with technology every week. Microprocessing goes deep on the little things that define your online life today, to give you a better tomorrow.
Think back to the last time you met up with a friend for dinner. How many times did you look at your phone during the meal? Chances are, you checked it at least once, if not more often, without even really thinking about it. How could you resist when you’re bombarded with notifications by a piece of technology precisely engineered to seize and hold your attention?
Checking a text or posting on Instagram when you’re in a real-life social situation may seem harmless, but studies have shown that it isn’t — not for you and not for the person you’re with. From office one-on-ones to dinner dates, interacting with your phone in the presence of another person can leave a lasting negative impression that affects how much you enjoy your time together or even how that person perceives your relationship overall.
According to Gallup’s most recent poll on the subject, Americans typically check their smartphones at least once an hour. Meanwhile, 81% report having their phones near them “almost all the time during waking hours,” and 41% actively check their phones several times per hour.
Still, most Americans also think they use their phone less than others around them — 61%, in fact, which, as the Gallup poll points out, is a mathematical impossibility. (I will freely admit to belonging to the 11% of polled users who believe they use their phone more than others.)
Kosta Kushlev, an assistant professor of psychology at Georgetown University, says he became interested in the distracting nature of phone use in social situations because of his own bad habits. Motivated by this observation, Kushlev decided to study the phenomenon. A resulting 2017 study showed that if a subject in a social setting has their phone on the table in front of them — even if they’re not actively using it — they leave that social…
