What screens are doing to relationships
Relationships have been the central part of our social customs for centuries. In less than a century, screens have entered our lives and pushed the bonds of our relationships to a precipice of breaking unlike any other advancement in our history. Before the pandemic, the US was dealing with a loneliness epidemic affecting one third of youths under 25 while only 11% of adults over 65 felt the same. But the problem doesn’t stop with loneliness, as rates of depression and thoughts of suicide have increased dramatically (more than doubled in some groups!) across categories of young people between 2008 and 2017.
If screens offer us an interconnection like never before, why do we feel so alone, depressed, and suicidal? Well the only factor that really changed between 2009 and 2017 is our ability to stay connected to our devices 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Just like dopamine was designed to drive us to achieve tasks that enabled us to ensure the survival of our species, we have other chemicals that ensure our social interaction and when one called Oxytocin is missing it is tantamount to losing the bond of friendship, love, or deep trust. As a species, we need oxytocin because we need each other to be able to survive long term. Communities and groups responsible for tasks as a team will survive much longer than lone wolves trying to fend for themselves. So while dopamine might drive the essential contact between humans to ensure offspring.. But unlike dopamine which gives us instant gratification, oxytocin is much more long lasting. Compare dopamine to a new intense relationship and oxytocin to a couple who has been together for 50 years. While new relationships are fun, we generally see much more value in the latter. Without oxytocin we lose our generosity, empathy, trust, and pretty much all that is truly valued when we think about human connection.
What’s the connection between screens and oxytocin? Well, two main eye contact and human touch. The importance of eye contact has been proven to start the moment a baby is born, the release of oxytocin with eye contact in babies is believed to help with cognitive development, helping the transmission and processing of information, sending signals of love, safety, and connection. That release of oxytocin is not just for babies, it’s still working for us as adults, and even better the release of oxytocin actually reduces our levels of cortisol. The sad fact is that we’re spending time together, but we're connecting less than ever before because our eyes are all looking at technology instead of each other. In effect, we’re losing our ability to connect to each other because we simply don’t make eye contact with each other anymore.
The second thing preventing release of oxytocin is the lack of human contact we have with each other. Human contact in the form of hugging, holding hands, shaking hands, giving a pat on the back, giving/getting a massage, even petting your dog/cat, are all ways of getting an oxytocin boost. Friendly, positive touch has a universally positive effect and with our increasing use of our devices, we’ve lost the ability to take advantage of this stress relieving, calming effect of the release of oxytocin.
Between online dating, social media, constantly looking at our devices instead of the people around us and simply not having nearly enough true human interactions anymore to keep us in a healthy state of mind. We’re missing out on our body’s magical biology which is naturally designed to keep us well-balanced, happy, compassionate and connected. Instead our over dependance on our devices is leading our society down the wrong path of high stress, loneliness, depression, and suicide. It might be time to put the devices down for just a bit and find time to connect again. Stay tuned next week for some tips on how to achieve that.
