Is your smart phone causing arguments? Does he hate the fact that you’re constantly glued to your Kindle? Do you wish his iPad would just “accidentally” break?  

A new survey carried out by Eircom has revealed that 67 per cent of us firmly believe that technology is the root of most of our arguments at home. Yes, seriously.

It’s no surprise that in this day and age, most households across the country have undergone a digital transformation – the majority of Irish families have the internet, most teenagers have an iPod and pretty much everyone and their granny has a smartphone. But what is all this technology doing?

Well according to the first ever Eircom Househould Sentiment Survey, which was released yesterday, our love of technology is shaping our lives and influencing our behaviour in interesting ways.

In fact, 52 per cent of people surveyed by Eircom said that they now spend more time on different tech devices when they are together. While 80 per cent of us believe that technology has, for the most part, a positive impact on Irish households, women and men hold different opinions about how this technology should be used.

46 per cent of fellas said that they believed it was acceptable to use their smartphone to text a colleague after work hours or at the weekend. Whereas only 36 per cent of women thought this was okay.

And 67 per cent of Irish people believe that we have technology to blame for a lack of domestic bliss in our homes, as they think it actually causes arguments. In particular, smartphone users were singled out here. Why? Well some of the survey participants believe that smartphone users push the boundaries on what is acceptable phone behaviour and what is not.

But despite all this, technology is seen as a source of security for most Irish households. 46 per cent of the people surveyed stated that they slept better with a mobile phone next to their bed.

“The results of our first Eircom Household Sentiment Survey have given us some new insights into just how much technology is influencing every aspect of our lives – with some interesting consequences – both positive and negative,” said Carolan Lennon, Chief Marketing Officer at Eircom.

 “It’ll be interesting to see how we become more accustomed to this new way of living as new technologies develop and awareness and knowledge of how to use technology grows over the next few years,” she added.

Do you think that technology has a tendency to cause arguments in the home? Let us know.