There are a lot of “relationship strengthening” apps in the App Store. They promise things like better communication and more fulfilling relationships for couples.

We tend to live distracted lives. These apps attempt to remind users to come up for air once in a while so that they can show significant others the proper love and affection needed in every healthy relationship.

These apps can act as Band-Aid®s for the underlying issue: The person using the app is still regularly stuck below the surface in their Sea of Distraction; apps like this only help the user breach the surface long enough to check “love” off the to-do list before diving back down into the depths of Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit.

Instead of coming up for air only once in a while (e.g., when prompted by an app), how much healthier could our relationships be if we reclaimed real, intentional human connection as our normative behavior, kicking the Sea of Distraction but for those occasional splashes and dips? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯