Valentine's Day 2013: 3 Ways Smartphones Can (and Will) Destroy Your Valentine's Day

Culture

Pundit Mayura Iyer argues that too much smartphone usage could destroy Valentine's Day. She explains below how to avoid letting that iPhone of yours take away from this otherwise amazing holiday.

The constant connection with the outside world that smartphones have provided threaten our ability to truly enjoy and reap the benefits of the deep, emotional connections we make with others in person.

On Valentine’s Day, these threats are heightened. On the one day of the year that we spend $13.19 billion on showing others how much they mean to us, the constant updates on the lives of others through our smartphones pose various dangers to our love life and our sanity on Valentine’s Day.

1. It’s a constant distraction

 

When you’re constantly in contact with everyone else via Facebook, Twitter, email, Gchat, and texting, you’re not focusing on the emotional connection you share with that special someone on Valentine’s Day.

2. It reduces you to making petty comparisons between your life and the lives of others:

Constantly being connected means you will constantly be bombarded with gooey Facebook statuses and romantic Instagram pictures of other people’s dates. If you’re single, this will cause you to compare your life to the lives of other couples in an extremely unhealthy way.

3. It separates you from reality:

Smartphones oftentimes help us ignore the reality of life, sending us into an alternate reality that exists only in cyberspace. This hinders our ability to make more personal connections and reduces our relationships with others to quick texts and skimming through our newsfeeds. On Valentine’s Day, we shouldn’t be treating our personal relationships so cavalierly; instead, we should do what we can to give our connections with others our full attention.

Read the full article here.