I’m in a restaurant in Boston with my wife. We just enjoyed several hours of deep, rewarding conversation. Our cell phone batteries were close to dead after a day of travel. The bartender was cool enough to charge our phones.
At first, I noticed the itch to look something up on my phone. Jen and I talked about the pull of the phone. Having the phones away from us made the pull palpable. This led into a conversation about our dopamine seeking nature.
We talked about a rough day she had this week. She came home after a long day. I was excited to see her. I wanted to talk. She was DONE! She realized what men go through when they can’t listen to their wives at the end of the day. She got it. Huge victory for both of us.
The reason we achieved the victory? We didn’t have our phone to stimulate our lab rat need for dopamine.
Here’s the irony… My wife is sitting next to me as I ignore her while I write this on my phone.
Put the phone down. Make a real connection!
