Hanging up the phone may help your relationship

Baylor University took a poll and found women spend a total of 10 hours on their phones a day while men spend eight hours on their phones.

People use their phones to talk, connect on social networks, email, listen to music, get their news and text message.

BYU-Idaho student Kambira Amidan said she see’s her classmates glued to their phones.

“I see people like sometimes running into others because they’re on their phones, it’s a problem, even during class lecture,” Amidan said.

Along with people suffering from electronic displays of insensitivity, a new survey by the PEW Research Center found that 88 percent of people believe it’s not alright to use cellphones during dinner.

BYU-Idaho student Austyn McCombs said it’s not appropriate for dinner.

“That’s super rude. No, don’t go on your phone on a date.,” McCombs said.

Newly married couple Joshua Fletcher and Mikele Fletcher both found themselves checking their phones during dinner and decided it was hurting their relationship.

“It’s not good, I’ve felt it. You can be in the same room but be so disconnected you’re doing your thing and your spouse is doing another thing. Sometimes you may realize it and sometimes you may not,” Joshua Fletcher said.

One step they took to cut the cellphone addiction was deleting social media applications.

“We’ve just noticed that a lot of couples when they go out in public, when they’re on a date or just hanging out with friends, a lot of the times they’re not interacting with they’re spouse, they’re just on their phones. They’re glued to their phones, posting on social media,” Mikele Fletcher said.

Healthytipping.com recommends some helpful ideas that will help minimize your phone time.

They suggest deleting social media applications or games on your smartphone so you’re not tempted to use them. Instead keep them on a tablet or another device. Also charge your phone on the opposite side of the room, which makes it less convenient to check.

BYU-Idaho professor of communications Lee Warnick, who’s studied media for decades, said this could be just a trend.

“I’m in my third or fourth generation of mass media, and I’m seeing that we’re spending more time communicating through the phone then face to face like we use to,” Warnick said.

Warnick also said that this form of communication may impact society going forward.

“It’s very real, there’s so many ways to communicate and it begins to flow into all those other areas. We are losing the skill to communicate person to person, which may or may not be actually connecting us as closely as we may think,” Warnick said.