Thank you to everyone who has responded to my previous posts on marriage. All of your comments have been so encouraging and it makes me excited to continue to write about ways that you can enrich your marriage and make it everything God intended it to be.

If you haven't had a chance to read my previous posts check them out here: 
Marriage Matters Part 1
Marriage Matters Part 2
Keeping Your Marriage Shiny and New
Opposites Attract
Celebrate Your Love

Something that has been on my heart a lot lately is just how much our modern day culture has negatively impacted marriage. The current culture has bred a generation that lacks the desire for commitment and healthy communication. In turn, it has become one that strives for instant gratification in all things and minimal intimacy. This iPhone generation, with an infinite amount of entertainment at our fingertips, is probably the most bored generation of all time. 

Why is that?!? 

Because we are over stimulated and have trained our brains to not sit idle... EVER! Meaning if there is a spare 2 seconds where we have nothing to do, we will (without even thinking about it) get on our phones to check our email, facebook newsfeed, twitter, instagram, play a game or two, and do anything to make the red number in the top right corner of an app go away.

How does this affect marriage you might be wondering?

If we are training ourselves to be impulsive, impatient, compulsive and chronically bored this will most definitely impact our relationships. Communication has become two dimensional and surface level which can rob a marriage relationship of intimacy and depth.

When the internet was introduced in the 1990s, the thought process behind it was that we would finally have more time to spend with our families. Being able to send an email from home was supposed to make our lives more efficient and therefore freeing up more time for the people that really mattered! 

However, quite the opposite has happened. We have become a generation that doesn't know how to unplug. We are so readily available to anybody and everybody that we are becoming less available to our closest relationships that should be our priority.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:





1. Set healthy boundaries with technology in your family... STARTING TODAY! 

Things like no phones at the dinner table or in the bedroom. It makes me sad when I look over at another table at a restaurant where every member of the family is on their smart phones sitting in silence, mesmerized by whatever flickering image or status update is before them. PS. My family is guilty of this too so this is a big challenge for us as well!

2. Fast from your phone at least one day a week! Jarryd and I try to do this on Fridays because this is our Sabbath and date night. We are both off on Fridays so fasting from our phones helps us to be more intentional in spending quality time together. 

Interesting fact: There is evidence of a huge baby boom from Hurricane Sandy and some experts are attributing it to the blackouts that prevented couples from being on their phones! Is this sad to anyone else?!? Babies were made because couples finally looked up from their glowing screens only to remember that they had a spouse... 

"Oh hey... I remember you... Want to make out?" 

Ok so maybe that is an exaggeration of the possible dialogue that took place but I wouldn't be surprised if it did!