The Digital Age often is knocked for its impersonality – and for good reason. Take love letters. Once they were an exquisite art form, lovingly crafted on reams of decadent paper. Today they largely are abandoned for e-mail and terse, thumb-typed instant messages:
“HT, QT. HAND. SYS. BG. BFN.” (Translation: “Hi there, Cutie. Have a nice day. See you soon. Big grin. Bye for now.”)
And who, these days, doesn’t know self- important saps who spend more time blabbing into their mobile phone than they do gazing tenderly into the eyes of the person they’re actually with?
Yet some researchers say technology is bringing couples together. Some people are communicating affection by taking steps such as transforming their DNA into art or spicing up their sex lives through more frequent and spontaneous interaction.
The more intimate the relationship, the more technology people typically use to maintain it, says Keith Hampton, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communications.
Hampton’s own studies have focused on thousands of neighborhood websites, which have been proven to enhance community relations. Neighbors linked by e-mail and the Internet tend to socialize in person more than those who aren’t, he says. They often have a heightened sense of safety and solidarity.
“It’s not unreasonable to think technology would (create) similar dynamics in a romantic relationship,” Hampton says.
Gadgets, gizmos and other tech props can be a lot of fun as long as they don’t get in the way of people “making love in the real sense,” observes Dr. Ramona Reed, a psychiatrist in private practice in Arvada. “And I don’t mean just having intercourse. I mean looking at and listening to each other face to face.”
Cheri Collins, owner of Singles Marketplace in Denver, agrees that personal contact works better: “When you are communicating any other way, it is much easier to misrepresent yourself (intentionally or not). Also, when people are constantly connected to technology in their work lives, they are looking for a break from that in their personal lives.
“IPod just announced that they will be offering profiles for singles – you can browse while standing in line at the grocery store,” Collins writes in an e-mail. “It’ll be interesting to see how that works out – personally, I think your chances of meeting your partner in the produce section are better!”
But , a Canadian company, says DNA technology can be a very personal expression of love. Your unique genetic markers – as well as those belonging to the one you love – can be magnified and printed in bold colors on canvas. Couples are buying images of their genetic codes and displaying them alongside canvases showing off their children’s DNA, says company co-founder Adrian Salamunovic. Since opening in July 2005, the company — which offers art ranging from $390 to $1,300 — has sold thousands of pieces and has branched into selling canvases featuring fingerprints and lip prints.
“We’re providing people with a unique expression of intimacy, commitment and love,” he says. “It’s a beautiful representation of you presented in a way that you would never get to see it – without committing a major crime, of course.”
Those who want to use technology more sassily might turn to Georgia Payne, a dominatrix spanking the behinds of men in Los Angeles, and her best friend, freelance writer Julie Taylor. The two women teamed to write “How to Be a Dominant Diva,” a book offering step-by-step instructions for 69 games sure to shake up anyone’s love life. Many of the games require the use of technology to, um, score.
The idea was inspired partly by the nation’s divorce rate (43 percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years, according to the National Center for Health Statistics) and conversations with friends, Taylor says. Input from Payne’s clients didn’t hurt either, she adds.
“I go to my son’s preschool, and almost all of the other kids’ parents aren’t together anymore,” she says. “I talk to my married friends, and they’re having sex once a month. They’re too busy. They’re too tired. They’re stuck in a rut.”
Taylor, who writes saucy stories for Cosmopolitan and Redbook magazines, dishes sex advice with the nonchalance of a soccer mom who’s sharing her recipe for green-bean casserole.
“Anything you can do to make time for your spouse and open the lines of loving, sexual communication is a good thing,” she says. “And if technology is going to help you do that, great. We should embrace that and use it to our advantage.”
Sounds as if she did. Taylor tried out all of the book’s games on her husband of eight years. She sent sultry photos of herself and racy, recorded messages to his mobile phone. She surprised him by downloading erotic stories into his digital music player. She asked him to share his favorite sexual fantasy, searched for corresponding pictures on the Internet and invited him to review the images with her.
And she did a number of other naughty things we’re too bashful to describe – except to say that some of them involved remote controls and drive-
through lanes at fast-food restaurants.
“We don’t recommend doing this stuff on your work computer, obviously,” Taylor says. “And we’re also not suggesting that you need to put on these big productions every time you want to make love. We’re just saying, ‘Hey, there are fun, new ways to shake things up a bit.”‘
If all of this is a little too much fun for you – but you still desire an intimate connection, you’ll get further than the average person by taking the time to personalize your correspondence in old-fashioned ways, says Laurie Puhn, a consultant for online dating service Match.com and author of “Instant Persuasion: How to Change Your Words to Change Your Life.”
“Don’t ever forget that because so many people rely on tech communications, you could win a lot of points or really stand out from the crowd simply by taking that extra little step of following up that e-mail with a phone call – or following up that phone call with a personal, handwritten note,” Puhn says.
“And who wouldn’t like someone who knows how to turn off their phone to engage in a thoughtful conversation?”
