Technoference and its impact on romantic and parent child relationships with a focus on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic
Words – 1994
‘Technoference’, is defined as the interruptions to personal communication because of technology. The term itself was ‘coined by Brandon McDaniel, an assistant professor of Human Development and Family Science at Illinois State University (McDaniel & Coyne, 2016). The word itself is originating from ‘technical’ (‘techno’) and ‘interference’ (‘ferance’). In modern day these issues are growing (Dixon et al., 2023) as demonstrated in part through the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) as individuals began to spend more time online (Lemenager et al., 2021) and it became clear that technology can and does affect all aspects of life. For example areas such as child development and romantic relationships (Zoppolat et al., 2022;Deneault et al., 2024) Research by (McDaniel & Coyne, 2016) demonstrates this further, as indeed 70% of couples reported technology interrupted their interactions.
Key psychological theories also enforce these arguments, for example attachment theory (Bowlby, 1979) is one of the key theories underpinning Technoference, as indeed according to this theory, strong relationships are dependent on effective communication and openness. With the strongest relationships being built on the ideas of intimacy and connection, using a phone or any technology to excess results in these ‘moments’ and feelings that create stable relationships to be broken. Limited Resource Theory (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996; Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1994) also plays a role in Technoference, because humans are not processing machines, they have a limited cognitive process. This means that when technology takes up attention it is often difficult to focus on anything else, creating the distraction many people are familiar with (McDaniel & Radesky, 2018; Reed et al., 2017).
However, it is also clear that technology brings good to relationships (Small, 2020) through things such as helping long distance couples communicate, and helping to solve conflicts through instant problem solving. As well as technology enhancing living in the pandemic through things such as preventing job loss of around ‘2% of the UK workforce’ as well as positively impacting how people get access to healthcare and treatments (Clipper, 2020;UK Parliament Committee , 2020) opening room for debate around the negative effects of technology and Technoferance. This article will firstly discuss the effect technology use had during the pandemic and continues to have on both romantic relationships and family bonds, before addressing ways that technology can be used without causing Technoference and its side-effects. I will finally explain where this new and developing field could progress in the future.
Relationships – summary
Technoference has major negative impacts on relationships, for many different reasons, including people feeling forgotten or excluded, or the conversation simply not feeling ‘worth it’ due to the amount of time the other person is spending on technology. Technoference impacts romantic relationships, for example out of ‘143’ married couples, technology was shown to disrupt conversations and ‘mealtimes’, resulting in more arguments and lower relationship satisfaction (McDaniel & Coyne, 2016). This research is validated as it used tried and tested measures such as the ‘Quality of Marriage Index’. However, as the study used a predominantly heterosexual sample this may limit the generalization of said findings.
Additionally, it isn’t always the case that relationships are negatively affected. For example, (Morris, 2020) highlighted how technology can strengthen relationships as it allows for effective conflict resolution as well as allowing couples to track each other activities and plans, further avoiding conflict around unknowns (Morris, 2020).
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Technoference has been shown to negatively affect parent / child relationships. This negative effect is present from childhood, demonstrated in the research by (Deneault et al., 2024) that showed how individuals ages 9-11 years who perceived higher technology use from parents subsequently had higher levels of anxiety. Indeed, this study is valid as it included a large sample (1303 participants) demonstrating how the findings can be generalised and aren’t restricted (Charlesworth Author Services, 2022).
Further bolstering arguments for Technofernace is the fact that this effect continues into adolescence with Technoferance impacting behaviour. This is shown through teens’ perceptions of parental Technoference and technology use being positively associated with violence and mental health decline. Anxiety levels have been shown to rise in teens when they feel forgotten by parents due to their media usage (Stockdale et al., 2018). All these issues were exacerbated by the time spent indoors during COVID and individual worries about the unprecedented time they were in (Glassman et al., 2024; Everri et al., 2022). However much like with romantic relationships, many parents can manage their technology use so as not to cause Technoferance, (Stockdale et al., 2018). Furthermore, the outcome of technology use isn’t always negative, (Walker, 2022;Singer & Brodzinsky, 2020) for example after and during COVID-19, technology was able to facilitate communication between separated families as well as ‘reunification’ of those who had been separated long term due to parental issues (Singer & Brodzinsky, 2020).
Relationships and the impact of COVID-19 -
COVID-19 affected all aspects of life, and was able to give researchers some insight into how the growth in technology use would affect individuals, demonstrating how at that time, increased screen use across all generations in turn promoted poorer mental health and lower romantic relationship satisfaction across the board (Zoppolat et al., 2022). Furthermore, situational stressors such as COVID-19 were shown to directly influence technology use meaning that the more time an individual spends online due to what is happening to them internally or externally, negatively impacts their romantic relationship. However, it is also clear that technology can positively impact mental health particularly during the pandemic, with technology helping to positively bolster mental heath as well as making some forms of treatment far more accessible (National Institute of Mental Health, 2024). (Guest et al., 2023) demonstrated how technology use in COVID negatively impacted mental health. Furthermore, treatment accessed online during the pandemic was shown to be less effective than that received face to face for reasons such as the practitioner couldn’t pick up on subtle cues (McGee, 2021).
The strain technology puts on relationships is also prominent from a sexual perspective. For example, research has found that among young couples there is a significant association between sexual dissatisfaction and partners’ technology use (Hipp & Carlson, 2021). This yet again being due to the disruption technology brings to relationships and more specifically communication. Further research also suggests that this dissatisfaction is due to technology taking away opportunities for sexual activity (Hipp & Carlson, 2021).
However, technology can also promote intimacy in relationships, for example sexual health apps (Eleuteri et al., 2018) can promote communication and understanding, demonstrating whilst technology and Technoferance in particular (Hipp & Carlson, 2021) can negatively affect relationships this isn’t always the case (Flore & Pienaar, 2020).
As mentioned above the pandemic created an over reliance on technology and growth in Technoference that weakened communication opportunities between parent and child (Roberts., 2022). This growth in Technoference also affecting ‘parenting quality’ and thus the bond, as using technology reduces parental warmth this often resulting in children who are more likely to exhibit aggressive behaviours (Dixon et al., 2023). This was a literature review, which was extremely beneficial as it provided time to evaluate arguments and current research (University of Illinois, 2022). Furthermore, the review is reliable and valid as it included information from ‘6 databases’ and retrieved over 300 articles in support for the reviews argument. Furthermore research by (Mason et al., 2024) reinforces this argument as it became apparent that , Technoference during breastfeeding limits mothers understanding of their own child’s social ques this leading to lower maternal understanding and the child feeling isolated, misunderstood and neglected, adding to this the study itself is valid as the score for maternal inattention to social ques when using technology was ‘P=0.03’ showing a highly significant association.
As well as Technofearence sometimes resulting in children struggling with their self-regulation skills due to the lack of stability understanding they received from their parents because of phone use (V. Konok et al., 2024) this fact also being reinforced by the work of (McDaniel & Radesky, 2018) enforcing the validity of this argument further. From a cognitive perspective the pandemic also highlighted how children exposed to high levels of technology in the home environment are more likely to suffer speech and mental delays due to the absence of parental communication because of technology (V. Konok et al., 2024). Much like the argument above, this research is reliable as it used a two year follow up that helped consolidate their arguments and understanding. However, the study used a questionnaire as its main methodology, and it is possible that demand characteristics may have affected results to some degree (Sharp & Kine, 2008), perhaps affecting some of these arguments about Technoferace.
Mitigation –
While Technoferance negatively affects aspects of individuals lives, it is also clear that there are solutions to this problem, such as setting limits on when and for how long technology is being used around others as well as opening discussions around Technofeance allowing for understanding between all parties around how it affects the way people interact. (Johnstone.,2022) .
Technology can help enhance romantic relationships (Hertlein & Ancheta, 2014) through promoting communication and relationship development and parent child relationships can be boosted through technology use for the same reasons (Walker, 2022). This shows that technology can be effective in a relationship, but issues arise when it is used incorrectly, leaving one individual effectively ‘left out’.
Furthermore, in relation to the parent / child relationship the issue of Technoferance can be minimised through parental warmth. If the parent has high ‘warmth’ this can limit feelings of anxiety from children and adolescents (Stockdale et al., 2018) as the individual still gets the feeling of support from their parent.
Limits can also be put in place to stop the negative effects from occurring for example, setting up limits on technology (Glassman et al., 2024) as well as creating opportunities for open communication about how parents’ technology use effects children (Glassman et al., 2024). This research is considered valid as it included two surveys one published in 2019 and the other in 2021 showing temporal validity within the sampling and study. Furthermore, the study included a diverse sample of participants (below the age of 18 years, proficient in English or Spanish, and living in America) that help to improve validity further (Charlesworth Author Services, 2022), overall boosting the validity of Glassman’s arguments further.
Areas of future research -
The research into Technoference is indeed still developing, meaning there is little to no longitudinal research into how technology use affects relationships. For example, most of the work by McDaniel, the founder of Technoference, with exception from his 2018 study (McDaniel & Radesky, 2018), uses very short-term information. While longitudinal data was acquired from his 2018 study, no time frame was given in the report. This showing an area for future development. However it must be noted that much of the work into the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and Technoferance used longitudinal approaches helping to boost validity within the field, for example (Zoppolat et al., 2022) studied ‘3099’ individuals in relationships from 57 countries across ‘3 months’, showing while some development is needed in this field it is not the case that there is no research. While mental health is affected by technology due to interrupting conversations, it is also clear that further research is needed in this area as it is unclear if this affect is direct or indirect and what the mediating factors are (Dixon et al., 2023). Furthermore, research could be conducted into different types of relationships, for example it is clear that most of the current research focuses on the impact technology can have on parent / child relationships, and stereotypical western presentation of these at that. This raising questions with regards to how technology would apply to different family dynamics as well as across different cultures and even different romantic relationships such as those within the LGBTQIA+ community (MILLER, 2024).
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