Does technology or electronics come between you and your loves ones?

Sometimes I forget that people exist entirely.

Quite the opposite actually. My boyfriend and I have a (mostly) long distance relationship and so technology has enabled us to guarantee regular contact for free! When my boyfriend is around then I don’t use the computer (unless I need to for any reason) as he is away so much that I’d much rather spend what little time he is around, with him. When he’s not around, I live alone so, apart from the dogs, I have no one to ignore!

Nope

Yes. My mom hates that I spend so much time on Fluther and Facebook.

Without tech, I’d only see or hear from my parents and siblings maybe 3x per year.
Without tech, I wouldn’t be able to keep in touch with my friends who have all ended up being spread apart in different parts of the county, as well as a few friends who’ve moved to other states.

But considering we’re talking about family time, game nights, and dinner table, I’m guessing this is a question for teens who still live at home.

Nope. I have a good feeling when it’s time to switch off.

Yes, a bit. I tend to gather a lot of information for my different activities. And once in a while, I wish others around me wouldn´t be on the net too long either.

@Sarcasm No the question isn’t meant for teens who live at home at all. I sometimes have trouble putting down my phone and stepping away from Fluther and my fiancé is put on the back burner (not intentially). He’s done the same thing to me before also. I’m just wondering if anyone else has this issue and how they deal with it.

I do tend to Fluther more than I should, but then I have a bipolar son, a teen-aged daughter, and a disabled husband to deal with in the real world. Sometimes I just have to run away from home in a virtual sense.

I had a past bf who would play Call of Duty for up to 4hrs straight in the evenings and I’d get bored stiff and tired of waiting for him to come to bed before I’d nod off. The relationship didn’t go too far. Ever since then I’ve been skitchy about how into gaming people are because I am not much interested in spending my few available awake free hours on that.

I wish my girlfriend wouldn’t spend as many hours on MSN. I then also wish that she wouldn’t hide the screen from me when I walk in. And close the door on me when any calls her.

Maybe my trust issues are justified?

@ModernEpicurian – I think you might want to either set up a key-logger, or start considering other girlfriends. You don’t need to break up with her if you don’t want to, but I’m just suggesting you might want to be prepared…unless she is trying to buy you a secret Christmas present. Then, never mind.

@ModernEpicurian, a few stories for you with that familiar scenario:

1. Man married for a decade discovers his wife has not only been meeting up with old bf’s when she goes out of state back home but she’s been cruising the craigslist hookup circuit and myspace in search of “friends”. divorce

2. Man married for a decade discovers his wife is seeing one of his co workers and divorces her. She pleads for a year it was only a “one time thing” and the man remarries her only to discover she had much more than a “one time thing” with his co worker… and several others. divorce

3. Man married for a decade discovers his wife spending lots of online time with her “sister”, turns out her sister was aiding and abetting extracurricular affairs. He divorces her then foolishly thinks she’s only cheated a few times so he gets re engaged to her and she dumps him after cheating again. divorce

see a pattern?

Yes it does. And I hate it! We have three computer in our house, 5 tvs, and many game systems. I feel like technology is ruling our house right now.

Technology does get in the way, but more than that, it’s an escape from boredom and/or reality at times.

and @ModernEpicurian sounds like you should ask her what she’s doing… it never hurts to just ask, “Why did you close your computer when I walked in the room?”

No, I get plenty of social time in!

No, we are all confortable with it.

Instead of trying to reduce your time on the net, what works better is to increase the amount of time you do other things that are rewarding together. That way you will automatically reduce the amount of time on the net.