Sex or Text?

"Several high income countries have recently reported a decline in the frequency with which men and women have sex. Sexual inactivity might not seem an obvious focus for public health attention—concern is generally reserved for sexual activity and its adverse outcomes such as unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted infection, and sexual dysfunction—but regular sexual activity has benefits for health, well being, and quality of life."
"Research indicates that men and women who enjoy an active sex life are fitter, happier, and have better cognitive function and increased life expectancy. Evidence shows that sexual activity might help prevent infection by bolstering immune function; protect against cardiovascular disease by lowering heart rate and blood pressure; and reduce stress by increasing release of oxytocin."
Authors: Kaye Wellings, professor, Melissa J.Palmer, research fellow, Kazuyo Machiyama, assistant professor, Emma Slaymaker, associate professor, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine study, British Medical Journal

"[There appears a connection between smartphone tyranny and the weakening of] the boundary between the public world and private life ... You get home and continue shopping or buy tickets -- everything except for ... talking."
"You don't feel close when you are constantly on the phone."
"Several factors are likely to explain this decline, but one may be the sheer pace of modern life."
"It is interesting that those most affected are in mid-life, the group often referred to as the ‘U-bend’ or ‘sandwich’ generation. These are the cohorts of men and women who, having started their families at older ages than previous generations, are often juggling childcare, work and responsibilities to parents who are getting older."
"What is important to well-being is not how often people have sex but whether it matters to them.
More than half of the men and women taking part in the study said they’d prefer to have sex more often, which could partly stem from unfavourable comparisons with what they think is the norm."
“Most people believe that others have more regular sex than they do themselves. Many people are likely to find it reassuring that they are not out of line."
Kaye Wellings, lead author, study Changes in, and factors associated with, frequency of sex in Britain: evidence from three National Surveys of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL)

A study on mobile phone use while performing other activities was presented at a symposium on how digital technology is affecting relationships ( Getty )

A recently published major sex survey of 34,000 Brits points out the grip of the Internet has led the United Kingdom to join other countries ranging from Finland to Australia, in research validating that populations are less engaged in sexual union. One of the world's most thorough sex surveys -- The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL) which has conducted surveys every decade since 1991, released its latest findings representing the period up to 2012.

That finding validates that sex life in Britain, as in many other countries of the world where the Internet has taken precedence over all other modes of communication, including face-to-face, is responsible for people fixating on social media and all manner of Internet searches and communications, at the expense of one-on-one relationships of an intimate order; namely sex or conjugal relations, which are steadily on a downward spiral.

In 2012, 13.2 percent of women in Britain reported having sex on ten occasions or more in the past month, as compared to 20.6 percent back in 2001. For men, the figure over the same period dropped from 20.2 percent in 2001 to 14.4 percent by 2012. Those are the numbers representing couples who have continued to engage in sex. In sad contrast both men and women who had not experienced any sex in the past month had risen to almost 30 percent whereas in 2001 the figure stood at 23 percent of women and 26 percent of men.

As far as the authors of this latest study are concerned, it is the rise of smartphone use (the ubiquitous and hugely popular iPhone was launched in 2007), where the Internet has made its way into all aspects of peoples' lives. Digital life for most people has become an endless 24/7 affair. The compulsion to endlessly check email, to scroll, to scrutinize alerts, to engage in games and tab-opening are all identified as playing their part in destroying peoples' personal, intimate lives and concentration on other day-to-day concerns.

It is the social life of millennials that has fixated the interest of researchers, who delve into their sex lives for data applicable to that demographic. They, after all, came of age online. As a result the social contract requiring face-to-face relationships to bloom has passed them by with the disinterest of those who have more interesting fish to fry. The gap that exists in social awareness and custom between people over 35 and those under 28 in the modern social construct is immense.

Yet, this most recent NATSAL survey identifies that the steepest decline in having sex appears not among the young and single, but rather within the over-age 25 demographic who happen to be in long-term stable relationships; married or cohabiting. In this group the odds of having had sex ten or more times by either men or women was about halved between 2001 and 2012. These are the people who bring the Internet into bed, where the tendency is to continue working, organizing, shopping, communicating.

The survey looked no further than 2012 for its conclusions. But no one doubts that the situation has only exacerbated as the public ever more fiercely embraced their indispensable iPhones, abandoning flesh-to-flesh contact. The Wall Street Journal conducted a poll, finding a rising number of Americans (36 percent of 28-to-38-year-olds, and 16 percent of those over 39), will make the inevitable choice of Internet over sex.