A twitter here, a twitter there, a twitter everywhere. This is just the latest piece of technology that keeps people in touch. Twittering was the conduit for the information about the Mumbai bombings, keeping the world informed as to what was going on. Useful? Yes, maybe, but do we also really need to check out what Ashton Kutcher had for breakfast or hear his musings on wife’s arse?

Next time you are alone, maybe quietly sipping a coffee or wine, watch the people around you. Couples sitting talking, one leaves the table and immediately the other checks their mobile. It is not unusual to see mum or dad jogging along, baby in pram with wind sweeping around his face, sometimes a dog tethered to the parent’s arm, and an i-thingy firmly implanted in the parent’s ear.

Of course, technology has its benefits – it keeps us in touch with world events, it and allows us to communicate 24 hours a day. It can allow us to show affection in the SMS caress, that short private message to a loved one in a moment where we are apart and feeling an emotion we would like to share.

Much modern technology enables fast and useful communication that can save lives and keep us in close contact with people that are geographically far away. We cannot do without the technology of communication.

On the other hand, when we use it as the only means of communicating with people close to us it can be emotionally distancing. Remember, in a conversation more information is exchanged through body language than the spoken word, and most of today’s technology hides people from body language.

SMSing – the thing you do under the table at dinners and at boring meetings – brings out a number of modern behaviours. There is SMS stress – you just have to reply right now, and the SMS stoush – just let me tell you how angry I am with this quick retort.

I have a 35 year old client, Bob*, his wife says he spends most of his time on the internet and mobile phone and she feels this isolates her. Bob says it is necessary for his work and no doubt that this is true. But, is he also using the technology as a defence mechanism? Is he scared of forming real, three dimensional personal relationships with the all the compromises and uncertainties they bring? What is the effect of his constant communication on his ability to communicate with his wife? Is he avoiding thinking about this by hiding in technology?

Without question there are people who use technology to hide from the world. A thousand years ago these people would have been hermits and monks, dedicating their lives to counting stones on the beach or copying manuscripts. Now they lead a far more productive life buried in computers playing Dungeons and Dragons or blogging about the discrepancies between the six different Star Wars movies.

Like most things, however, communications technology is a double edged sword. It can cut us off, but it can also help us reach out in new ways. The technology exists now for on-line therapy. Three new websites to add to the technological toolkit are FearFighter (www.fearfighter.com), a program to treat panic and phobias; Beating the Blues (www.beatingtheblues.co.uk) for mild to moderate depression and E-couch (www.ecouch.anu.edu.au), an Australian experimental website, designed to recognise certain mental health disorders prior to treatment. Such programs play an important role in providing information and education about problems that people may be experiencing. However, such programs, while beneficial, are not a substitute for genuine personal care for emotionally troubled people. Whether these health websites become a routine part of one’s emotional care remains to be seen, but they are vulnerable to manipulation as the potential for financial pay-offs catches the eye of profit hungry pharmaceutical companies.

Other forms of technology include prescription drugs. The technological advances in medicine now provide a pill for nearly disorder imaginable - except one that makes your partner clean the house.

However, results published in Archives of General Psychiatry suggest that in the short term talking therapy works as well as pills do, and in the long term it works better.

There was a study of 240 people done a few years back, comparing the results of a cognitive therapy with an antidepressant drug called Paxil.

After 16 weeks of treatment, the results for those on cognitive therapy versus those on the drugs were identical. Some 58% had shown perceptible improvement. However, the follow up a year later was a big surprise, one year after the treatments ended, only 31% of those who had received cognitive therapy had relapsed into their former state. 76% of those who had been given the anti-depressants, however, had relapsed.

The technologically-advanced, easy way is not always the most effective.

The work and money that goes into developing new technologies is mind boggling and yet it is so often used to achieve something staggeringly banal. Ignoring the unfortunate period in history cursed by the lava lamp, and skipping lightly over bread making machines, we are now in an era where i-thingies can now simulate foaming beer, Zippo flip-top lighters and make realistic fart noises.

I guess the thing we all need to keep in mind is that the most technologically advanced way to do things is not always the best or even the fastest. Keep what works well for you and don’t hesitate to discard that which keeps you distant from the things that truly matter.

Gabby Skelsey is a clinical psychologist, specialising in couples therapy and sexual trauma and is practising in the Elwood/St Kilda area. Gabby can be contacted on:

Ph: 0419 154 579

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Web: www.bayside-counselling.com.au

+ 1

+ 1