Hi everyone welcome back to another episode of the savvy psychologist. I'm

Dr. Ellen Hendrickson and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a

sympathetic ear and zero judgment.

To text or not to text.

In a world where two-thirds of Americans own a smartphone, the answer is usually to

text. To the point that 25% of couples who live together report texting each other from different

rooms in the same house.

But what effect do smartphones have on our relationships?

Is it an automatic left swipe or does every smartphone case have a silver lining. This week we'll

cover how to use tech to connect and when to put down that phone. The

smartphones are a contradiction. They infinitely expand our access to the world, all

while cutting us off from our immediate surroundings, as the number of viral videos of

epic fails while walking with smartphone in hand can attest.

And if smartphones make us unable to avoid telephone poles and food court fountains,

we might assume they're wrecking our relationships as well. But the real answer might

surprise you. A 2014 survey on couples and the internet from Pew Research found that 20% of respondents gave a big thumbs down to the impact

of the internet on their relationship.

But a whopping 74% said the effect was positive.

So what gives?

It turns out it's not smartphones themselves, but how we use them.

That determines whether tech is bringing us together or leaving us each staring into our own internet vortex on opposite sides of the bed.

With that in mind, this week here is how to use the power of the smartphone to, per the Beatles, come together,

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