Are our phones and social media ruining our relationships?

Yes if you allow it to. We often times forget about the social interactions we could be having with real people instead of people on our phones. In this article a 31-year-old woman, not teenager is addicted to her phone so much that it caused a break-up and led her to writing her own book about it.

I am not surprised by this woman being addicted to her phone because she is still young. 31-year-olds may have stable careers and a family, but they are still not oblivious to the technological opportunities that the world provides for them. However teenagers and young adults, who I am surrounded by on a daily basis are constantly on their phones. Even at times where we shouldn't be on our phones we are, such as crossing the street for example. You would think that when you cross the street you would want to be very aware of what is going on at that intersection, but half the time we trust that cars would stop and we use that opportunity to check a text message or see that latest snap story of one of our friends.

By paying so much attention to our phones and apps on them we miss out on things that may not be super important to us, but may mean something to us. Who knows maybe if we didn't walk looking down at our phones so much we would make eye contact with the guy or girl who could be our future spouse or maybe, if you're on UNC's campus, you would pay more attention to the brick monster instead of tripping and possibly embarrassing yourself.

The bottom line is this: Opportunities are missed because of the amount of information we feel like we have to consume each and every day. I challenge us to take one day out of the week to turn our phones off and put it somewhere where we can't look at it for at least 4 hours. I am sure it'll feel great knowing that we do not have to be so reliant on our phones and can interact with real people instead of picking up our phone during awkward silence for example. Embrace the awkwardness! We are human and our phones shouldn't control us!

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/former-internet-addict-chronicles-ruined-relationships-in-new-book/