Thirty years ago, in a different life I was married to a police officer who left our small family for extended periods of time for training. It was all so different in those days, airfare was far more expensive than it is today, there were no such thing as long distance plans and the Internet had not been invented for ordinary citizens. During the extended period of time that he was away, the kids and I shared short telephone conversations with him once a week and he returned home only once for a visit. When he finally did return, we had to reintegrate him into our lives. That was difficult and perhaps may have been a contributing factor to our divorcing a few years later.

Two of my children are part of military families, they face frequent separations of different durations. It’s a struggle for both the person who stays at home with the children and the one who is far from home, but things have changed so much in the past 25 years. The difference is huge and couples today have so many more tools that help to make the separation more attached.

I got to see this first hand today. I’m currently working on a short-term contract at a somewhat remote mine site. The world of miners, oil patch workers and dozens of other trades that develop distant regions is one of continual separation and reunion.  The average day is twelve hours and everyone lives in a camp far from home. While riding the bus from the mine to the camp at the end of shift, the conversations were not between co-workers. Almost everyone on the bus was engaged in a conversation via cell phone, or texting and emailing from their smart phone. The bus was quiet except for the hushed voices the father’s spoke to the children, and then switched to private conversations with their wives. Every aspect of parenting and loving their spouse occurs in those few available minutes between the end of shift and sleep. For these men and women, who work hard for twelve hours, every day, for weeks or months at time, technology has brought their families to them daily.

So often, we hear complaints about how technology is taking over our lives and we don’t have real relationships. However, for many people, technology is what helps them to feel present in the lives of their children and lovers. Probably the most heartwarming examples of this are those families that are benefiting from the work the military has done to improve the lives of their members. The military has encouraged deployed soldiers to take advantage of the internet and computers they provide for couples and parents regularly via Skype.

We should be applauding this and Tokii.com does. To help combat dropped calls and poor cell reception couples can play our DiscoveryGames. Even if they can’t actually speak on the phone by playing games together they can share their thoughts and opinions easily and playfully. They can share their mood, learn how each other feels on big topics that affect the world or those that just affect their home.

Cell phones, internet, texting, webcam, are not the enemy, anymore than radio, telephones and television were. The tools we have today allow a couple to connect far more frequently than any other time in the past. Never again does a spouse have to wait weeks for letters to be delivered from far away places. Today a couple can be separated by oceans and still blow kisses to each other every night.

Try These DiscoveryGames – discover yourself and your partner on a sexual, emotional and intellectual level and have fun while doing it.

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I stumbled on a short article recently called Are You Normal Online? The one-pager was full of fun little statistics about what women do online. Naturally, I headed to the Internet to do more research.

Being 29, I spend most of my time online social mediaing (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare) and browsing retailers like Bloomingdale’s and Etsy–which apparently makes me normal since the average woman makes 32 online purchases per year. My mom (I won’t reveal her age), on the other hand, uses the Internet mostly for Facebook (but we got her off Farmville, thank God) and researching things like “how to fix a dropped knit stitch” on YouTube. She’s certainly normal with the Facebook checking–the article says 34 percent of women check it first thing in the morning before even brushing their teeth! The article also revealed that 62 percent of women check out their exes online and more than one third peek at porn!

The numbers defining what we do online are definitely staggering. The Huffington Post states here that This article says a whopping 70 percent of Americans participate in social media. I always sort of thought that because of my age bracket, I spend more time online than a “normal” person, but it is just second nature to my friends and I. Although I do remember a time without Internet, it’s a very faint, fuzzy memory that fades more and more with each mouse click. each American spends 60 whole hours a month online, meaning if you put that time all together, you’d be surfing the Web for one month straight. That’s a lot of online shopping!

The bottom line here is we’re all normal online. The Internet, e-commerce, social media have become so much a part of our lives that we can’t imagine life without them. Kinda like cell phones. Do you remember when they didn’t exist and we had to use pay phones and wait until people were home to call them? Now those were the Dark Ages.

Tantalizing Tokii Reads – to make relationship work into fun.

Touch base with Tokii. Get Together. Get Talking. Get Intimate. Join Tokii Today! Like Tokii on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter. Get inspired with Tokii Pinterest, Get a behind the scenes look at Tokii on Instagram.

For better than half a decade “Social Media” has become a household phrase and a worldwide phenomenon, and the undisputed heavyweight champ of the social media universe is your Facebook account.  Connecting family, friends, friends of friends and random acquaintances, it’s been keeping you in up to date on the comings and goings of your circle for quite some time now.  So much so that as of this February, there was 845 000, 000 active users logging on worldwide, with 41.6% of all Americans among that number.  Those are big big numbers for a club that didn’t exist ten years ago.

Facebook is where social circles collide, and those collisions are starting to have major reverberations in the way we deal with our romantic partners and spouses.  A quick Google of “Facebook divorce” and “Facebook affair” lets you know that the social network we all know and love has become a new front on the battlefield of love.

At it’s most benign, Facebook is a temptation to snoop.  Any healthy relationship is a trusting relationship, but the temptation to check in on what your partner’s friends have been up to, or who they’ve been chatting with is an awfully tempting low-level breech of trust, and if you get a hold of your partner’s password, why, it’s only natural to take things a little further and poke around a little more.

Of course, on your end there’s a temptation to get in touch with old flames, just to see how they’re doing, or maybe “friend” that cute co-worker you’ve been flirting with and give them the odd poke now and then.  More and more we’re finding out that “poking” on Facebook is leading to a little more poking between the sheets.

According to The Bay Area NBC, a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers revealed that twenty percent of all marriage disputes occur because of Facebook, and about 80 percent of those in the process of divorce use Facebook to communicate with their lovers.

Tara Fritcsch, the Edmond therapist says most connections start off innocently enough.  “An ex-love, an old flame — there’s a nostalgia there. There’s memory of the simple days or maybe an excitement of new romance,” she said. Fritsch the psychologist even says that couples should establish guidelines to monitor their use of online social networking sites:  “If it’s not something you want your spouse to know about, don’t do it. Have open communication with your spouse. Share your Facebook sites. Have one another’s passwords. Talk regularly about who you are chatting with”.

So Facebook has become the best place to see baby pictures of your new Niece, as well as the best place to set up an affair with that married woman from accounting. Ubiquitous, thy name is Facebook.  It’s a dangerous piece of software, but like chainsaws and Ginsu knives, it can be useful if used properly.  The trick is simple, maybe not easy, but simple:  Communicate.  Keep things out in the open, tell your partner what you’re up to, be honest, and don’t go looking for trouble.  And while your at it, did you see that cat picture I posted?  Priceless!

Maria S is an avid blogger and social media lover.

Try our Plugged into Facebook DiscoveryGame here:

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One of the hardest things to contend with in a long distance relationship is the lack of physical intimacy.  You can’t get a hug over an e-mail (or a blow job for that matter).  As anyone who has had to spend any length of time apart can tell you- it’s really, really hard, no pun intended.  In fact 40 % of long distance couples break up.

Thankfully modern technology is trying to address the issue of today’s global community.  People travel for business, people go away to school, and sometimes someone needs to go care for a loved one that is ill.  All are stressful situations made more stressful when you are missing your partner.  Welcome Skype, FaceTime, Facebook etc.  These technologies all help us to feel more connected to our loved ones.  In their book The Long Distance Relationship Survival Guide, Chris Bell and Kate Brauer-Bell suggest technology can even foster openness, “It’s often easiest to open up and share parts of ourselves through the reflective process of writing than an impromptu conversation”. The same principle can apply to opening the doors to explore new sexual territory.  You might as well take advantage of that high-def camera in your smart phone.  No longer do you have to set up the tripod to take a racy picture and hope the clerk who develops the film doesn’t catch it, then march to the post office to send it to your lover (though that does sound pretty hot, in a retro kind of way).  Now you can video chat, email a picture, send a video.  The possibilities are endless.  Just make sure you have a secure Internet connection.

And you don’t have to stop there.  There is so much pornography and adult entertainment available on the Internet.  There are as many as 266 new sites a day!  And many of them are now free… hello, pornhub!  Kick back together, anywhere in the world and stream the same video.  My friend and her husband call the iPad the iPorn when they want some entertainment of a mature nature.  If you’re unsure how your partner feels about porn, try this DiscoveryGame.   If straight up porn is too much for you, try an erotic movie like 9 1/2 Weeks.  Then afterwards try our 9 ½ weeks DiscoveryGame. 
These games are another great way to connect while apart.  You can also set up a shared online folder, then start dropping in a video or some photos that you like.  Or use Social Media; make a shared Tumblr with an erotic leaning.  That way every time you check back to it, you have a little treasure stash.

The best thing about sharing some pornography while apart is that when you finally do reunite, you have so much new material to cover.   Hold all appointments and send calls directly to voicemail.

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In 1907, French Philosopher, Henri Bergson first wrote about the “Elan Vital,” the hidden force “which is responsible self-organization and spontaneous morphogenesis.” He hypothesized that this force could be “harvested” and “profited from” if someone “embedded it into an inanimate substance and activated with electricity.” His work was met with a lot of criticism when it was published.

Did Henri Bergson Predict Facebook in 1907?

In 1907, a French philosopher named Henri Bergson predicted Facebook. He called it Elan Vital and described it as “an invisible force which creates organized groups.” He said this force “could make someone a lot of money if it was put into something and activated with electricity.”

At the time, his idea was not accepted. Many people said it was crazy. Yet today, Bergson’s prediction seems to have come true. If you look past the old-fashioned style of writing, he sounds just like Mark Zuckerburg.

If this guy successfully predicted the coming of Facebook, is it possible that he can explain the void that Facebook is filling in our lives? Let’s look at some of his quotes. I will tell you what I think and you feel free to leave a response in the comments section. Here’s the first Bergson quote:

“The Elan Vital (Bergson’s name for Facebook) will have a huge impact on the world. It will go far beyond what its inventors intended. It will be a hypothetical energy.”

I was shocked when I first read this quote. It seems like he really predicted the existence of Facebook. Obviously, Facebook has “a huge impact on the world.” Although many people use it just to upload pictures of ridiculously cute cats and spy on their girlfriend (I’m still hoping mine hasn’t learned that custom privacy feature yet), I think the Facebook revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria and Facebook “events” such as Kony 2012 and the prosecution of Trayvon Martin’s killer are good examples of a “huge impact.”

Facebook definitely went far beyond what its inventors intended. I don’t think anyone, least of all Mark and team, could have imagined the implications of what they built. Here’s the next part of the Bergson quote:

“It is a hypothetical energy which will affect sex life as well as human activities and interests.”

This is an interesting and useful point. Bergson said it is a hypothetical energy. What did he mean?

A hypothesis is something that is thought to be real based on previous observations but cannot be proven until tested. That is definitely true of Facebook’s influence. Everyone is constantly talking about the “power of Facebook.” Companies that I work for tell me Facebook can get them more customers. Politicians I have met tell me Facebook can win them votes. Dictators in places where Facebook is banned like Iran, China, and Burma fear the power of Facebook to destroy their government. Yet trying to use that power always leads to mixed results.

For example, take Johnson & Johnson’s attempt to go viral on Facebook with the “Motrin Moms” campaign. One Google search for the keyword “Motrin Moms” (the actual name of their marketing campaign) and you see this:

The company thought that since moms between the ages of 24 and 55 are the biggest group on Facebook, that they should promote Motrin (ibuprofen) especially to them.

If Facebook was a “non-hypothetical energy,” this might have worked. Instead, it totally backfired. People hated it. The campaign cost millions and damaged the company’s reputation. People saw through all the marketing research BS, and attacked them viciously. You can watch the original commercial here.

In other cases, the “hypothetical energy” of Facebook had a positive effect: Dave Carroll was a struggling, unknown singer/guitarist from a tiny, country band called “The Sons of Maxwell.” He played bars in Ontario hoping for his big break.  Then, in 2008, he took a trip to Chicago during which United Airlines broke his $3,500 Taylor guitar. United also refused to pay for the thing, so he recorded a song called “United Breaks Guitars.” You can listen to it and watch the video here.

This song got 11 million views, made him a millionaire recording artist, won him several multi-million dollar speaking tours, AND made him a TOP-LEVEL SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT. Unbelievable. The “hypothetical energy” really worked this time. So Facebook’s power does seem to be “hypothetical;” an experiment each time it is used. I think Bergson’s definition is very good.

The last part of that quote is: “human activities and interests.”

This one seems just right on the money. How did this guy guess the future? He even said the words “activities and interests,” which is the exact term Facebook uses.

Let’s look at another Bergson quote:

“If someone complains they are bored at work they might use the Elan Vital. Elan Vital makes the world more interesting.”

This almost made me laugh out loud. It’s so true. This quote also seems to say that feeling like you are connected with something larger than yourself is motivating.

In modern society, we are all small cogs in big machines. Facebook allows us to expand our horizons and see people we don’t know, learn about places we have never been, and get right in the face of big companies.

Not just seeing it but EXPERIENCING IT in a way that feels like real socializing. Posting a complaint on your Bank’s Facebook wall is a direct statement to a large (most likely evil,) and otherwise faceless organization. In the past, you would be confined to just leaving a useless comment card. Psychologists would say that anger would go inside you and make you angry again later. But a Facebook post (or a viral YouTube video) can be seen by the world and that’s empowering. It’s a release. It gives us a sense that we are special.

What are your thoughts?

SOCIAL MEDIA AND LOVE

It’s definitely true that thoughts of romance are present in a lot of social media interaction. You can see this in jokes, photos, comments, status updates, and private messages. But when socializing on social media, you have to be careful. You can easily get hurt. A lot of couples get introduced on Facebook and a lot of people break up because of it too.

What we do at Tokii is harness the energy of love and help you understand other people. We create meaningful interactions that are structured and let you see the truth behind someone you may consider as a potential partner.

Facebook clearly fills a void in our lives. Different people explain this in different ways. Jennifer Eby, the author of “The Effect of Facebook on Jealousy in Relationships” says it’s because Facebook is fun. Ashwini Nadkrani and Stefan G. Hofmann, the authors of “Why Do People Use Facebook?” say it’s because of the need to belong. But I think the best explanation is Henri Bergson’s. I also give him extra points for being able to see 100 years into the future.

Kirill Storch is blogger from Stockton, CA. He attended University of the Pacific where he majored in Political Science.

Try our Plugged into Facebook DiscoveryGame:

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At the end of last year, Facebook had 845 million active users. If Facebook was a country, it would be the third largest in the world. What did people even do with themselves before Facebook’s inception in 2004? There really is nothing in the scope of history that can parallel Facebook’s impact on the way in which people interact. Okay, we all know it was a pretty big deal when Polybius came up with the Alphabetized Smoke Signal System back in 150BC, but if we’re talking about recent history – Facebook takes the cake. We all spend so much time absorbed in the world of pokes and tagging, that it unquestionably has a large impact on relationships, notably the ones we share with our significant others.

With 425 million active users logging in through mobile devices at the end of last year alone, there must be some uniting factor that draws us all in. Maybe the fact that Facebook is actually super helpful has something to do with it. It reminds us that a loved one has an upcoming birthday, or that an old friend just got engaged. And really, think about how fun Facebook can be. When you’re out to dinner with your partner, you can sit there looking at photos of friends that you haven’t seen since high school. You can remark to one another about how fat they’ve gotten, how crappy their jobs are – all without having to actually see or talk to them!

What other great relationship help can Facebook offer? Well, say you’ve just had a fight with your wife and she storms into the bedroom, laptop in hand. You can simply stay put. You’ll see that she’s logged onto Facebook because she’ll update her relationship status to it’s complicated. Then, without even getting up, you can find that really funny picture from last Halloween, when you guys went as Kermit and Miss Piggy. You can then post the photo to her wall and write something like, “you’ll always be my little Muppet, baby.” In that moment, you’ll hear her giggle and her status will go back to married. The door will creak open and she’ll sneak back into the den, where you’ll be watching the hockey game still. You won’t even have had to get up, let alone say a word, to remedy what seemed like a pretty dire situation.

Let’s not forget the genius new time line feature (no, I don’t work for Facebook). Get your partner to switch over to the new format and then you can actually monitor their historical whereabouts. You can know exactly where your partner was and who they were with before they were with you. It’s amazing that Facebook can actually serve as a means to know the ins and outs of other people’s lives without having to communicate face-to-face at all. There are no secrets anymore because Facebook is always letting the cat out of the bag. It’s like Orwell’s 1984, except you get to be Big Brother, monitoring the comings and goings of your friends and significant other. Come to think of it, Facebook does more than simply save relationships. It’s actually a modern day Relationship Guru.

Kara Shultz is a trapeze artist and writer living in Berli.

Try our Plugging into Facebook and Plugging into Technology DiscoveryGames here:

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While technology and communication have been best friends with every advance, technology and relationships have always had a more tenuous coexistence. Every advance seemingly takes away from the all-important face-to-face time, which has especially been true in recent years as social networks are overshadowing even  “modern” forms of communication like email.  One recent statistic shows that 41% of couples admit to using text, email, chat or social networks to message each other even while they are together!

But the reality is that nothing has changed.  When telephones became a household standard, calls between partners became a must for relationships over handwritten love letters. New methods of communication will always overtake the previous technology.

At the same time, everything has changed, as technology has never been so integrated into every aspect of our daily lives.  How many people do you know who seem like they would freak out more when they lose their phone than they would if they lost wallet?  A recent survey of young people showed just how attached we’ve become. For the first time ever, respondents said they would rather live without their television than their mobile devices or the Internet!

This transition from face-to-face communication to these new methods has created backlash. Some even claim that technology is ruining relationships as these new ways of communication are not only taking away time, but are frequently being used for cheating on partners. Recently, an average of 1 in 5 divorce cases cite Facebook as a source!

In the end, technology is just a tool, whether it is used to further a relationship or break it apart.  At Tokii, we are using new technology to bring couples together!  And with the Tokii mobile app just on the horizon, you will be able to easily work on and improve your relationship wherever and whenever you want.

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The mobile phone…a couple’s NEW sex toy

“The bonds that unite another person to our self-exist only in our mind.” -Marcel Proust

Taking out her mobile phone, Jenna stopped to think for a moment. Every day she sends her husband Kyle a brief text message just to reach out and let him know she’s thinking about him. Usually she texts, “Hiya,” “Thkg of u,” or “Hope ur day is going gr8!”

Jenna is not alone in her quest to stay connected to Kyle. Couples are chewing up the digital airways with a jaw dropping 1,002 texts and 400 emails to each other every year. That’s almost 3 texts and one email every day!

Clearly digital tools have not only been embraced, they are in demand, and while couples like Jenna and Kyle are tearing up the digital space with words and pictures galore, research shows that digital tools are actually WIDENING the gap between many partners. Although that might sound grim, I think there’s an opportunity buried in there. With a shift in perspective, a willingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone, and actually doing something different instead of just thinking about it, a couple just might find they can reverse this trend.

Jenna’s pause lasted just long enough for pieces of an idea she’d been turning over in her head for a while to fully take shape. She and Kyle had been together for nearly 10 years, and for the most part it had been really good. Lately, however, with the pressure of kids, home, and careers mounting, they’d been less present with each other. They knew it was a concern for both of them because they discussed it from time to time, but neither of them made a move to change things. They simply went on with the status quo. Hmmm…

With communication, family, and sex problems being cited as the second, third, and fourth respectively most common reasons for divorce, Jenna and Kyle have good reason to be concerned. In his extensive research on marital relationships, John Gottman, Ph.D. found the four negative patterns that cause divorce include criticism of a partner’s personality, contempt, defensiveness, and the one Jenna and Kyle will need to watch out for – stonewalling or emotional withdrawal.

Jenna had read a few articles and chatted with her girlfriends about how people are texting to flirt. While it seemed from what she read that a lot of people are “sexting” with people OTHER than their partners, she thought it might be fun to try it with Kyle. Actually, what she really thought was that her mobile phone could be like a sex toy or at least a teaser to using a sex toy with him. She wondered if they could use their mobile phone to connect like they did in the early days. It could be like she’s the “other woman” and he’s the “other man” which sounded a little weird to her but kind of sexy too. Yes, she’d like that. She’d like that a lot.

It’s not surprising that using her mobile phone to connect with Kyle appeals to Jenna. One study found that women typically use mobile phones to express affection and men typically use mobile phones to get information. Social media and digital tools offer a layer in between the interaction. It gives us time to pause, to think, to edit before we open our mouths. It also removes some of the reluctance and shyness we might feel in f2f interaction. Some research shows that women feel more comfortable with a layer in between her and the person with whom she is flirting that a mobile phone offers. With women texting and emailing pictures, provocative and otherwise, on a steady rise, it’s apparent the digital space makes women feel more daring and less embarrassed.

Could there be a dawn of a new kind of digital age where a couple can use digital means to get closer emotionally and physically? I think so, but it involves priming a process and taking some risks.

Understanding it can take up to 24 hours for a woman to get into the mood for sex, using a mobile phone to text flirty messages promotes a dialogue in her head that can get that ball in motion. If she starts THINKING about sex, then she can use her mobile phone to experiment and PLAY with what’s on her mind. IMAGINATION is a very powerful tool and texting on a mobile phone is a very powerful FACILITATOR.

“No time like the present,” Jenna thought as she typed and erased her first “sexting” message about 20 times. Getting out of her head was hard and scary, but she was determined. She worried he might think it’s silly or that he wouldn’t have time to “play the game.” But somebody had to do something, right??? Status quo just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. Plus doing something new was kind of exciting and daring.

Jenna finally pushed send after typing, “Miss me yet? When u c what I’m gonna do 2 u later u will! ”

A few minutes later, a wry smiled spread across Jenna’s face when she read Kyle’s response. “Hmmm…that sounds tasty. And I don’t mean food. ”

Jenna and Kyle are just getting started with exploring their relationship in a digital space, and from the sound of the texts, they are getting off to a good start. Texting, IM, chat threads in social media sites, playing games in couples sites like Tokii, and even email have moved the digital events from an individual activity to a shared experience. It’s through shared experiences that a couple can deepen trust and understanding that will get them through the rollercoaster of life.

So go on and mix it up a little. Grab that mobile phone and send your partner a little surprise message. You know you want to…

Check out our video Educational History of the “Pleasure” Device

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Tech is NOT the Enemy

We’ve all been there. It’s 2 a.m., and even though we know nothing good ever comes of clicking in that little “What’s on your mind?” box after four cocktails, we do it anyway. A devilish grin wipes across our face and before we know it we’re typing intelligent (yet entertaining) status updates like “Duuude I’m drunk” and commenting on posts when we have no business formulating sentences for the public eye.

With as much social mediaing that’s going on these days by everyone and their grandmother, we’ve all also fell victim to drunken Facebooking at some point. You wake up and check our phone (considering how most of us do that before we pee or brush our teeth) only to find some comment that leaves you wondering, “What were they thinking?”

Apparently, this is an epidemic. So much so that Firefox has created a free plug-in called Social Media Sobriety Test that promises to put an end to regrettable, late-night posts. “Nothing good happens online after 1 a.m.,” the website warns social mediators before they take a test to ensure they are “sound of mind.” If you fail, you are instructed to go directly to bed, but not before your social media outlet of choice denies you access and posts this status for you: “(Your name) is too intoxicated to post.” OK, this is hilarious. I guess it’s kind of like when your Mom used to tell you that nothing good happens after midnight.

I have to agree with this MSNBC blogger. If nothing good happens online after 1 a.m., then websites like Texts From Last Night wouldn’t exist, and they provide hours of entertainment. “Do you know how awkward it is to call the bar from last night and ask if they found my leggings?” ”You literally pushed me forward in the seat so you could puke behind my back without the cabbie noticing.” It doesn’t get much funnier. Sobriety Test can help you not drunkenly embarrass yourself on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, and My Space (which, agreed, if you’re still maintaining a My Space account, excessive drinking is the least of your problems).

Our friend at MSNBC makes another good point: If the “The Social Network” is to be believed (it probably isn’t), without drunk keyboarding, there wouldn’t even be a Facebook to post drunk on. Touche.

Drunk Facebooking is amusing. I say keep it up. There’s always the delete button. What fun is getting wasted if you don’t regret something in the morning?

As a freelance journalist I’ve reported on a lot of things – fashion and beauty, arts and entertainment, travel and lifestyle trends. But it’s two subjects I’ve written about in particular that I’m pondering as I type this – technology and relationships.

See, I’ve spent a lot of my career so far reporting on technology trends, and I’ve also written my fair share of articles on relationships (how to find them, how to hold on to them, where to hide the body after a nasty breakup). Of course, I’m kidding about that last one but the point is, before starting this blog post, I hadn’t really thought of these two subjects as potential bedfellows (so to speak), but the more I think about it, the more evident it becomes that they belong together.

Relationships need technology to survive, because let’s face it, we’re probably in front of screens (computer, iPad, smartphone, video game) more than we’re in front of our partners. This became crystal clear for me the other day when in one week I found myself emailing my boyfriend – who I LIVE WITH, and then that same week, I received a Facebook message from him. It was then I realized that texting, social networking and email have become a lifeline of sorts between busy couples. Not to mention the potential for sexting, naughty video chats or naked photos sent over email – relationships and technology were made for each other.

Whether we want to admit it or not, technology has become a third party in many relationships. A recent study by British insurance company Esure found that the average couple sends 1,002 text messages and almost 400 emails to each other every year. So unless my boyfriend and I somehow become independently wealthy and can spend more time having face-to-face conversations rather than updating each other over email, we’ll be thankful for the technology that helps keep us connected.

Where would you and your significant other be without technology?