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Is using your cellphone on a blind date bad?

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Is using your cellphone on a blind date bad?

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If your going on a blind date the first not to do is take out your phone. Maybe you have to check a message but the peron your with might find it rude. Using your phone on a blind date can cause trust issues in many ways. Especially if you guys don’t really know each other. It can make the other person feel like they can’t go out with you because you’ll always be on your cellphone.

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Cell phones are ubiquitous in public places.

Credit: Peter Kim, Shutterstock

Going on a blind date? Here's a tip: Don't bring your phone.

The mere presence of a mobile phone can make the meeting between two strangers more stilted, according to new research published in the May issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

Cellphones don't disrupt casual conversation much, the study found, but when people were asked to discuss something meaningful, they reported less trust, empathy and lower relationship quality when a cellphone was in the room.

"What the work does is highlights one potential downside to mobile phones being so ubiquitous," said study researcher Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist at the University of Essex. [ The 10 Most Disruptive Technologies]

Tech distraction?

Przybylski got the inspiration for the study after noticing daters and bar-goers in Manhattan leaving their phones out on the bar or table. He wondered how the phone's presence might be influencing face-to-face interactions.

"It kind of sends a message that I could stop talking to you at any moment and start another conversation," Przybylski told LiveScience.

He and his University of Essex colleague Netta Weinstein designed two simple experiments in which two strangers were told to talk for 10 minutes. In the first scenario, 74 undergraduates were paired up and asked to talk about an interesting event in the last month. Some of them happened to have this conversation in a room with a mobile phone sitting unobtrusively on a nearby table. For others, the mobile phone was replaced by a black notebook.

A second experiment used the same setup with 68 students. This time, some of the students were told to have a casual conversation about how they felt about Christmas trees. Others were asked to discuss the most meaningful event of the year. Again, some participants had the conversation in the presence of a cellphone and others did not.

Turn it off

Even though the phone never rang or vibrated, it affected the conversation, Przybylski said.

"When people were having an important conversation, relationship quality was lower, and partner trust was lower and empathy was lower when the mobile phone was there," he said.

The effect was noticeable even though the participants barely noticed the phone. Surveys given after the experiment suggested the students had no idea the research involved the phone, and most had to be prompted to report they'd even seen it.

Przybylski doesn't see the research as condemning smartphones - plenty of studies find that technology does connect people, he said, particularly people who would otherwise fall out of touch due to distance. But being aware of technology's downsides may help make consumer tech less of a drag on your social life.

"There are both positives and negatives to different kinds of tech innovation, and what this research says is, basically, there are a lot of upsides - and if you're just mindful of the potential pitfalls, maybe we can build that self-regulatory capacity to put the phone away," Przybylski said.

"If you actually turn your phone off - and not make a scene of it, do it in a cool way - it definitely communicates care and compassion, and that the present moment is really important."

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Your Cellphone May Be Ruining Your Dating Life

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Going on a blind date? Here's a tip: Don't bring your phone. The mere presence of a mobile phone can make the meeting between two strangers more stilted, according to new research published in the May issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

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Is Using your cellphone on the first date bad?

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Is Using your cellphone on the first date bad?

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The first date is always the important one. Using your phone can make someone lose interest in you. Since you are using your phone on the first date the other person might feel offended. Researchers say it’s not always good to use your phone while being on the first date. In a first date you get to know a lot about that person but if they are on their phone then it won’t go anywhere.

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Some months ago, I sat across from two gay men who were on their first date. The great thing about a first date is that almost anything the other person says is the most fascinating thing you've ever heard -- because you want to have sex with him. Should you find yourself on a date with Hannibal Lecter, for instance, you might say, "Wow, skinning and eating people alive. How unusual. I've always wanted to know what that's like." (Have you seen the new Hannibal? That Mads Mikkelsen fellow can totally get it).

A first date is the time when you're supposed to hang on his every word like you're Angela Lansbury and investigating him for murder. After all, if it's a bad match and you weren't listening to vital clues, you might end up on a second date together.

On every first date, ask yourself: What would Jessica Fletcher do? A lot of Sid and Nancy situations could have have been avoided by answering this simple question.

However, it's not just that the guys next to me weren't taking notes. It was much worse: Both of them spent the entire date on their phones. In the hour and a half that I pretended to read Death in Venice next to them, they exchanged maybe a handful of pleasantries, while they gazed lovingly into their iPhone screens instead. You would have thought this was a Spike Jonze movie and they were on a double date with their devices. Were it completely clear that this date was a total stinker and not going anywhere, it might be understandable. They're just trying to get through a bad night. But if you've spent more time looking at Grindr than your date's face, how do you have any idea that you don't like him? You have to give these things time to fail in the old-fashioned way, in which you later obsess about him while binge eating ice cream and watching New Girl, waiting by the phone for a call that doesn't come.

But in today's dating world, he wouldn't even have the decency to call or send you a blow off text. You'd find out he's not that into you through a condolence Snapchat. I personally think that guys should have to contact you by tying a note to a Snowy Owl if they're going to blow you off. It's still a letdown, but at least you get a magic pet out of the deal.

It's easy to blame technology for our lack of connectedness, but the problem isn't Grindr. Grindr doesn't make you a bad date. The issue is not that we're dating our apps. We're dating our own egos. Neither of those two guys could get over themselves for long enough to look up from their phones, too busy complaining about the date over text message to actually have one. I once read an article where a guy live-tweeted going to the opening night premiere of The Great Gatsby, obsessively microblogging his thoughts to 3,000 of his closest friends. (On social media, the word "friends" is oddly synonymous with "total fucking strangers").

However, I kept wondering how he was actually processing the movie or even paying attention at all. When you're so busy staring at your phone, how do you ever get a chance to exist in the current moment? What view of the world do you get when all you see of it is a tiny screen? I had a feeling that if he had to explain the plot of the movie, he would simply say, "It was about the 1920s."

Can you imagine being the person sitting next to him in the theatre, the constant nagging light on his phone betraying the pristine darkness of the setting? We all hate the guy who is constantly on his phone, so much so that the previews actually warn you not to be "that person." Accordingly, every person I've told the "iPhone Double Date Story" to agrees that both of them deserve to die alone and half-eaten by wild dogs, with only the warmth of their 20th generation iSuppository for comfort. (In the future, we communicate through our butts).

I truly believe that there's a special place in hell for people who spend their entire date texting -- or the kind of guy who steps out to "take a quick call" and then ends up in an impromptu Camp David summit for 20 minutes. The "quick call" guys will share a circle with people who are rude to waiters, douches who take up two seats on the train, cat callers, and everyone who made The Blind Side a Best Picture nominee. Seriously, what's wrong with all of you?

However, if they are all going to hell, they should be prepared to take some of us with them. The problem is that we're all that guy we hate at some point, even if we don't have a smartphone. We're all too busy to pay attention, too busy to focus on the person across from us, and too busy to think up a better excuse than that we're too busy.

If you needed proof that we all suck sometimes, a study from Personal and Ubiquitous Computing is here to help. Research shows that an average person checks their phone 34 times a day, usually without realizing it. Ask yourself: How many times did you check it during work today? Did you check it while reading this article? Note that this number doesn't even factor in the amount of times you are actually on your phone, doing whatever it is people even do on Twitter. (Is it called twatting? Do users self-identify as "twits?" I still don't know what the deal is). Also, this figure records average use across all demographics, and my hunch is that gay men are likely to be above average phone checkers. Internet and mobile applications have become a ubiquitous part of gay life, with apps like Scruff becoming an integral part of how we stay connected.

As a gay man, you only meet guys through the Internet or by referral. Without Facebook, I have no idea how I would have gotten laid during college. It probably would involve a scenario in which I tricked him into thinking I was a Saudi oil heir or a long-lost prince with a rare case of amnesia that could only be cured by furious fellatio.

Today, gays live on the Internet, but what happens when we can't turn it off enough to find connection in real life? Your phone should help you become more in tune with the world around you, a way to stay in touch with friends and loved ones or find out what your significant other is doing right now. However, for too many of us, it's a tool of isolation, a way to avoid dealing with reality by burrowing yourself into the digital world that you've created for yourself. Let's be honest: Dating is the worst. It's absolutely fucking terrifying to put yourself out there on a first date to either get rejected or find out he a) collects life-size sex dolls he pretends are real; b) is a juggalo; c) talks like Corky St. Clair; or d) lives with the decaying corpse of his mother and wants you to come over for sandwiches.

Based on my previous dating experiences, all of those scenarios are surprisingly realistic. I once went on a mostly blind date to Mr. and Mrs. Smith with a guy who lived in his parents' basement and looked like Billy Corgan mated with a praying mantis. He had creepy skeleton fingers that caused me to instantly convulse the moment he tried to touch me. I faked explosive diarrhea to get him to take me home right after the movie ended. Somehow that was the best excuse I could think up on short notice. I'm not a great improviser, but hey, at least I gave it a shot.

When it comes to dating (and life in general), you will fail at almost everything. Unless you're one of those childhood sweetheart couples you only see on daytime talk shows (read: probably eunuchs), you will not end up with 99 percent of everyone you have ever liked or had a crush on. If that were the case, we would all be married to whoever we were in love with when we were 10, and I would be Mr. Jennifer Love Hewitt. That obviously didn't happen. Instead, you will endure years of heartache and suffering just to find someone you can be yourself around, which all looks a lot more glamorous in a Rachel McAdams movie. It might suck sometimes, but it's real life -- in all of its beautiful misery. You won't meet the love of your life on most days, but when you do, you've been through enough bullshit to appreciate it, all because you put down the phone long enough to fail with integrity. You've earned it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a Thomas Mann novel to pretend to finish. My Twitter friend tells me it's about Italy.

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If You Spend Your Entire Date Texting, You Deserve to Die Alone

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Some months ago, I sat across from two gay men who were on their first date. The great thing about a first date is that almost anything the other person says is the most fascinating thing you've ever heard -- because you want to have sex with him.

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Using your cellphone can kill the romance?

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Using your cellphone can kill the romance?

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Researchers say that pulling out your phone while being with loved one can kill the romance. Getting text messages and phone calls can make us make happy. While being on a date and getting the urge to check your phone can be a down hill. Many people are highly attached to their phone it makes your partner feel unwanted.

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How Your Smartphone is Ruining Your Relationship

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People who are more dependent on their smartphones are less certain about their relationships, according to new research.

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Do people really focus more on their cellphones?

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Do people really focus more on their cellphones?

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About 30% of people use their phones to avoid interactions.In this article it shows the percentage of people who use their phones to avoid interactions.

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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Mobile phones have become a near-ubiquitous tool for information-seeking and communicating: 83% of American adults own some kind of cell phone. These devices have an impact on many aspects of their owners' daily lives. In a telephone survey conducted from April 26 to May 22, 2011 among a nationally-representative sample of Americans, the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project found that, during the 30 days preceding the interview:

Cell phones are useful for quick information retrieval (so much so that their absence can cause problems) - Half of all adult cell owners (51%) had used their phone at least once to get information they needed right away. One quarter (27%) said that they experienced a situation in the previous month in which they had trouble doing something because they did not have their phone at hand.

Cell phones are an important tool in emergency situations - 40% of cell owners said they found themselves in an emergency situation in which having their phone with them helped.

Cell phones can help stave off boredom - 42% of cell owners used their phone for entertainment when they were bored.

Despite their advantages, some cell phone owners just need an occasional break - 29% of cell owners turned their phone off for a period of time just to get a break from using it.

With advantages comes frustration - 20% of cell owners experienced frustration because their phone was taking too long to download something; 16% had difficulty reading something on their phone because the screen was too small; and 10% had difficulty entering a lot of text on their phone.

Cell phones can help prevent unwanted personal interactions - 13% of cell owners pretended to be using their phone in order to avoid interacting with the people around them.

Young adults (those between the ages of 18 and 29) are especially likely to say that they have encountered several of these situations recently:

70% of 18-29 year old cell owners have used their phone for entertainment when they were bored

64% have used their phone to quickly retrieve information they needed

42% have had trouble doing something because they did not have their phone nearby

30% have used their phone to avoid interacting with the people around them

Text messaging and picture taking are the most common uses of cell phones outside of voice calls; Smartphone owners take advantage of a wide range of their phones' capabilities
Text messaging and picture taking continue to top the list of ways that Americans use their mobile phones-three quarters of all cell owners (73%) use their phones for each of these purposes. Other relatively common activities include sending photos or videos to others (54% of cell owners do this) as well as accessing the internet (44%).

One third of American adults (35%) own a smartphone of some kind%%TOKEN%%, and these users take advantage of a wide range of their phones' capabilities. Fully nine in ten smartphone owners use text messaging or take pictures with their phones, while eight in ten use their phone to go online or send photos or videos to others. Many activities-such as downloading apps, watching videos, accessing social networking sites or posting multimedia content online-are almost entirely confined to the smartphone population.

Several demographic groups use the non-voice features of their mobile phones at high rates. These include young adults, non-whites, urbanites, and those with at least some college experience.
About this survey
The results reported here are based on a national telephone survey of 2,277 adults conducted April 26-May 22, 2011. 1,522 interviews were conducted by landline phone, and 755 interviews were conducted by cell phone. Interviews were conducted in both English and Spanish. For results based on all adults, the margin of error is +/-2 percentage points; for results based on all cell owners, the margin of error is +/-3 percentage points (n=1,194); and for results based on smartphone owners, the margin of error is +/-4.5 percentage points (n=688).

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Mobile phones have become a near-ubiquitous tool for information-seeking and communicating: 83% of American adults own some kind of cell phone. These devices have an impact on many aspects of their owners' daily lives.