10 Ways Technology Tramples Your Sex Life | Sexual Health slideshows | Family Health center

Internet Infidelity

The Internet has made infedility amazingly easy. Just step into the next room, connect to a willing partner with a web cam, and then...No sex really happens so it really isn't infedility, right? Wrong! In a recent poll, 77% of Americans and Canadian agree that Internet infidelity is as serious as old fashioned, sneaking around adultery. And because it is easy and habit-forming, it is even more dangerous. While many people rationalize that Internet sex isn't really cheating, to the overwhelming majority of people cheating is cheating. Internet adultery was involved in one third of all divorce cases in 2009.

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Photo courtesy of bark by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/barkbud/4927456167/
Frey, Patrick. HOW TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES HAVE IMPACTED MARRIAGE IN AMERICA. Thesis. Georgetown University. 2010.

Cybercelibacy

Real people can be scary, so an increasing number of people turn to online games and networks to fulfill their needs without the messy realities of face to face relationships. Harvard professor Craig Malkin says that the ready availability of online relationships enables people to avoid the pain of isolation without analyzing their fears of intimacy, and compounds the severity of those fears by allowing them to become ingrained. In a recent poll, 20 percent of Americans admitted to spending less time with real people in favor of more time online, and 28 percent reported they were having less due to online activities.

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Photo courtesy of Dalvenjah FoxFire by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/dalvenjah/5841200623/
Goldsmith, Belinda. Americans giving up friends, sex for Web life. Reuters. 20 September 2007.

Cyberstalking

In the Internet age, it seems all personal details can be uncovered online. Up to 90 percent of Americans admit to going online to check on the activities of their former romantic partners, and 60 percent admit to using the Internet to check on the activities of a current crush. Checking on an ex online can interfere with the process of breaking up with an inappropriate partner, and even create a virtual walk of shame after, surprisingly often, one hops right back in bed with a person proven to have been a romantic mistake. Better out of feed, out of mind.

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Photo courtesy of Carl Johan Crafoord by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/carl-johan/2665995531/
Dahl, M. Seriously, stop stalking your ex on Facebook. Today Health, 19 September 2012.

Facebook Jealousy

There's a good reason many married couples aren't Facebook friends. Following your partner's Facebook feed, researchers have discovered (yes, there are scientists who study this kind of stuff), provokes jealousy. That's because the partner following online does not have access to the in-person behaviors that give the on-line interactions meaning. One does have to be a crazy, raging psycho to stop to wonder just what comments on Facebook mean, especially when the commenters post in a kind of shorthand the reader doesn't know. Example: The husband sees his wife's male Facebook friend comment "You look great!" and imagines they could be having a sexual relationship.

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Photo courtesy of Joe Lodge by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/joe57spike/5412451276/
Amy Muise, Emily Christofides, and Serge Desmarais. More Information than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy? CyberPsychology & Behavior. August 2009, 12(4): 441-444. doi:10.1089/cpb.2008.0263.

24/7 Connections

As hard as it may be to believe, there was an era in which men waited for women to send them perfumed letters in the daily mail--and that era didn't end until about 1990 in much of the world. Nowadays, we can communicate with just about anyone just about anytime, at least by text, and often by video connection. Researchers have found that couples who are connected by more than five methods of instant communication (such as cellphone, instant messaging, Facebook, email, and other social media) actually experience less satisfaction in their relationships the more different ways they are connected.

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Photo courtesy of Gavin Llewellyn by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/gavinjllewellyn/6235070321/
News.com.au. Study says computer talk is killing relationships. 12 April 2013.

Netflix Adultery

He promised her they would watch the movie together. But he couldn't wait, and watched it on Neflix. Not yet such a serious problem that it is cited as a major cause of divorce, Netflix adultery does occurs, survey data show, in 12% of couples, and in those couples, 59% contain one partner who spoiles the ending for the other, which is to say, 7% of couples contain at least one big-time jerk. On the plus side, keeping the promise "We are going to watch this together" reinforces honesty and fidelity and in its own small (or large) way, strengthens relationships.

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Toomas Hinnosaar by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/hinnosaar/2655128664/
Ruiz, R. Do you &#039
Netflix cheat&#039
? Survey reveals fans&#039
TV adultery. Today Health. 20 May 2013.

Gadgets, Apps, And Programs

It's distressing to come in on your partner and find the bed shared with a strange person. It's also distressing to come in on your partner and find the bed shared with a cellphone or a laptop computer. When social media, computer games, role playing programs, or Hulu become more appealing than talking, spooning, cuddling, and sex, there is a problem. Even having a phone nearby can reduce the attention you pay to a person you are with, or the attention paid to you. Having a television in the bedroom can reduce the amount of sex couples have by half.

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Photo courtesy of Dmitry Barsky by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/dbarsky/4434470780/
Lin, HL. How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships. Scientific American. Website accessed 21 November 2013.

Matching Services

An astonishing number of couples are together because of algebra. More precisely, a huge number of couples in the USA and increasingly in other countries met through match making services, which choose prospective partners on the basis of their answers to an online personality quiz. These psychological inventories are too general to answer questions such as "Will she be happy if I keep six cats?" or "Is he afraid of skydiving?" and the real test of whether a match has been made can only been determined after the two potential partners meet face to face. But shyness about meeting face to face is the reason people use the services.

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Photo courtesy of Don Hankins by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/23905174@N00/2061329074/
CBSnews.com. Online dating services don't work, scientists say. 7 February 2012.

Google

In the twentieth century there was a curious custom known as the "blind date." Arranged by mutual friends, the date would be the first chance for two people to meet, neither knowing anything about the other. In the twenty-first century blind dates have largely become a thing of the past, as 48 percent of Americans who are "on the market" to become attached report that they check their potential dates on Google before agreeing to go out. You are far less likely to go out with an ax murderer, but you may reject your potential soulmate because of a duplicated name or a quirk in the Google algorithm.

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Photo courtesy of Anthony Ryan by Flickr : www.flickr.com/photos/useanthonyryansphotos/7946386402/
Glamour.com. Why you should stog Googling your dates. Accessed 21 November 2013.

Porn Galore

To read porn, it used to be necessary to get into a car, drive to a nearby town, stop in a sleazy neighborhood, park your car where it wouldn't be seen, and then dash in and out of a dimly lit pornography shop where the sales clerk would hand you your purchases in a brown paper wrapper. Now porn is available online 24/7 for pay and for free, and people who watch lots of it tend to develop unrealistic ideas about what to expect from their real-life sexual partners. Unreasonable expectations lead to unreasonable demands, and often to broken relationships. One quarter of all divorce cases cite porn as a reason for splitting up.