Love the one you're with

My brother commented to me to today that he and his girlfriend were both settled in for a relaxing evening by the fire when each simultaneously made the same observation. Rather than engage in conversation with each other, they were each engaged in communicating with their blackberries! They laughed together as they realized how a pattern of “unwinding” looks so much more different than it did even a decade ago. Now they are always connected, always available, and always distracted from, in the words of the Buddhist philosopher, Be[ing] Here Now.

It’s easy to look back before the intrusion of instant messaging into our lives and think how much better things were before the digital age. But that may be an exaggeration. For instance, I recall that my father would feel irritated when my mother would pick up a book and disappear into its pages while they sat together in bed or in the den. And let’s not forget the old-fashioned telephone, which has consistently interrupted household family time since the Alexander Graham Bell’s first child hit puberty. And, of course, television has soured many an intimate moment—a recent Italian study showed that rates of marital sex dropped in half when there was a TV in the bedroom.

While TVs can be turned off and books can be put down, people don’t feel capable of shutting off their blackberries or cell phones because they are expected to be always available. People who know you can readily check email want you to be waiting by your inbox; they are expecting you to read, process, and respond at once.

Being chronically on call eats into your private life and robs you of the full enjoyment of the company of your loved ones. It invites strangers into your home day and night. It erodes the quality of the time spent together.

So next time you and someone you love are hanging out by the fire on a cold autumn night, turn off your blackberries!