woman with cellphone

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Want to add unimaginable zing your sex life? The secret is in your cellphone.

As in: turn it off and put it away. Intimacy requires you to be present and that means giving all your attention to your lover — and not reading the text message that just came in. It even has a name: phubbing or “partner phone snubbing.” Phubbing is the extent to which people use or are distracted by their cellphones while in the company of their relationship partners.

Phubbing includes the following:
• My partner places his cellphone where he can see it when we are together.
• My partner keeps her cellphone in her hand when she is with me.
• My partner glances at his cellphone when talking to me.
• If there is a lull in our conversation, my partner will check her cellphone.

To find out the real effect of phubbing, researchers from Baylor University in Waco, TX conducted two separate surveys with a total of 453 U.S. adults. The results:
• 46.3 percent of the respondents reported being phubbed by their partner.
• 22.6 percent said this phubbing caused conflict in their relationships.
• 36.6 percent reported feeling depressed at least some of the time due to being phubbed.
• Overall, only 32 percent of respondents stated that they were very satisfied with their relationship, the study shows.

Translation: When you are with the one you love and you pay attention to your cell phone, you are sending a clear message that the phone is more important to you than your lover. This lowers your lover’s satisfaction with the relationship.