Smartphone use is linked to strained marriages, fear of divorce, and less sex, according to a new study.
A survey conducted by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute found that 37% of married Americans are often using some kind of screen when they would prefer to talk or do an activity as a couple.
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That number changes by income level, with 44% of low-income couples finding their spouse distracted by a phone when they would prefer quality time, and 31% of high-income couples. According to the study, lower-income marriages are “more fragile” to begin with.
“Marriage is the thread that holds society together,” study co-authors Wendy Wang, IFS director of research, and Michael Toscano, IFS executive director, said. “For the sake of their families and for the good of society, spouses should be empowered to resist the technological forces that threaten to fray the marital bond.”
The isolated feeling from spousal smartphone distraction is the same for husbands and wives, liberals and conservatives, and religious and non-religious, according to the study.
However, 44% of couples below the age of 35 report that their spouse uses their phone too much, while 34% of couples ages 35 to 55 say the same.
While many studies, and an advisory from Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, have focused on the effect of smartphones and social media on children and young adults, the IFS/Wheatly study shows adults are also negatively impacted.
“Smartphones are engineered to be addictive. It is naive to assume that adults would be totally immune to their design,” Wang and Toscano said. “The most likely scenario is that marital difficulty and addiction to smartphones are reinforcing each other, and that — without breaking out of the smartphone addiction — the underlying marital problems will be exacerbated to the breaking point and near impossible to address.”
The lack of quality time and ability to nurture a marriage presented by smartphone addiction is negatively affecting relationships in several ways.
Only about 60% of couples who report smartphone issues say they are “very happy” with their marriage, while 81% of couples who do not have that problem feel the same way. In the same vein, 21% of couples that struggle with smartphones report being unhappy in their marriage, compared to eight percent of couples who do not.
Couples with smartphone addiction are also more concerned about the possibility of divorce, with 26% reporting their marriage may end compared to seven percent without the issue feeling the same way.
All told, Wang and Toscano find that, controlling for a variety of demographic characteristics, married couples with smartphone problems are 70% less likely to be very happy in their relationship, and the perception that their marriage might end in divorce is four times higher.
The authors suggest that some of the reasons for the strains are that couples with smartphone issues are having less sex and fewer date nights.
Only 44% of couples with phone distractions report having sex once a week or more, while 23% report not having had sex at all, or once or twice, in the past year. Fifty-five percent of couples without smartphone problems report having sex once a week or more, while only 13 percent report rarely having sex.
Similarly, 58% of couples addicted to their phones report either no or rare date nights, which have been linked to happier marriages.
“Routine conversation, dates, and sex connect spouses and foster stability and happiness,” the study states. “Addiction to smartphones crowds out the opportunity for couples to make time for one another.”
Wang and Toscano conclude the study by offering recommendations to couples, including setting rules for smartphone use or even using more basic phones that only have talk, text, and email capabilities.
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The authors also call on social media companies to remove the addictive features of their platforms, like infinite scroll, and urge leaders to establish social norms alerting persons to the unhealthy nature of smartphone addiction.
The study was conducted among 2,000 married couples ages 18 to 55 throughout the United States.
