At what point do cell phones become a third wheel? Advice for couples and parents

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Once upon a time, cell phones were for making phone calls only. This seems obvious, but today, cell phones serve us in so many other ways.

Let’s consider all the things we might use our phones for from morning till night: an alarm clock, personal messages, work e-mails, reminders, entertainment, photo albums, banking…

Our lives are at risk of being trapped in those ten square inches. While we cannot deny the convenience of this all-purpose, pocket-sized device, we also must admit that, at times, its presence becomes cumbersome. Instead of making our lives easier, it oppresses us.

When the cell phone becomes unwelcome company

You’re at dinner with friends. You could be talking and catching up, joking, reminiscing about old times, but instead you’re constantly distracted by notifications on social media. Waiting to enjoy the dish you ordered, you check your notifications. You don’t even realize that you find yourself then scrolling your newsfeed. A new video has been posted by one of your favorite content creators and you “zone out,” for however long or brief a moment.

This kind of situation generally affects teenagers, who have a harder time self-regulating their behavior. In any case, the cell phone – which allows us to be constantly online – can become a hindrance at every stage of life and in every relationship. Suffice it to say that, on average, a person sleeps 8/24 hours; statistically speaking, we spend almost as much – 6 hours and 40 minutes to be precise – online. Every day. This is data from the Digital Report 2024, according to which, globally, the average time we spend online is 400 minutes per day. When you add it up, that means the world population spends a total of 780 trillion minutes per year using the internet on their phones, which is equivalent to nearly 1.5 billion years of collective human existence.

We should ask ourselves whether these hours spent online are really all that necessary or if some of these hours have already taken us away from more urgent, useful, uplifting activities.

Smartphones: the third wheel in a relationship

If you are in a partnership, you may wonder if the cell phone – whether it’s used more by one person or the other, or both – hasn’t taken away some quality time you could be spending connecting on your outings, during the evening, on walks, etc. The phone, with its cumbersome presence, might also cover up silence that we should have the courage to face. It muffles the sound of problems and postpones important conversations. Cell phones become, in some cases, a shield, with which we protect ourselves from real relationships.

Isolating and alienating oneself, however, especially if you’ve chosen to share your life with someone else, is never the solution. The cell phone numbs us, but it does not solve problems for us.

Whatever your situation is as a couple, try staying off your cell phone every night for a week – along with every other screen – and see what happens.

You may find yourself laughing like you haven’t in ages, or you just might realize that it’s time to say to each other’s faces what you have been holding in for months.

Parents’ responsibility of screens in regard to their children

In an article published on our website, Lucrezia Scotellaro pointed out, “Families have become more and more often multi-screen environments, where at least one TV, smartphones, tablets, computers and video game consoles “thrive” together. This reality is transforming important aspects of family life.” She followed this up with the results of a survey commissioned by Empantallados.com, a site for parents created to promote educational accompaniment in the digital world. Scotellaro focused on the important role that parents have as mediators between their children and technology. She concludes that this accompaniment must be based on the trust and security of those who have clear criteria for action, and this implies warning youth about the risks of the internet, while still taking advantage of the opportunities technology offers.

To teach children proper cell phone and internet use, it is essential to first, oneself, exercise the proper behavior we expect of kids when it comes to technology. There is no rule that young people will take to heart and embrace without a credible testimony and commitment from adults. Let’s establish rules that we will all follow, like no cell phones at the dinner table and setting phones aside during certain activities, like playing with little kids.

Growing interest in digital education.

In the Gad3 survey (commissioned by Empantallados.com and commented on in the article above), when parents were asked: “How prepared do [you] feel in facing the challenge of managing new technology?” as many as 60% responded that they would like to know more about their children’s digital education, while 9% acknowledged that they were overwhelmed by the problem and had thrown in the towel.

This data reiterates this interest and desire to learn much more about both the potential and dangers of technology. On our own website, we keep repeating that it’s never too late to start working on your family’s “digital diet.”

The solutions proposed in the article above, which we quote below, aim to embrace opportunities to connect. It suggests that when the use of screens is excessive, one way to ‘detox’ might be to not allow screens at the dining table and to instead encourage dialogue; to keep phones out of the bedroom in order to avoid falling asleep late, with a cell phone in your hand; in the car, avoid using hotspots, so you can take advantage of that time for talks or some sort of meaningful discussion; or leave the cell phone ‘parked’ outside the room when studying in order to avoid distractions.