The one thing you should do to save your marriage: Nikki Osborne on why we need phone bans

Australia’s divorce rates are climbing but it’s not too late to save your marriage - if you follow one piece of advice.

They need to introduce a mandatory trigger training course for social media.

Social media is making morons of us and if you don’t realise you’re a moron yet, you might be about to.

We’ve come to accept a new lack of social etiquette online that there’s no way we’d accept in real life.

So let’s for a minute imagine everything you comment or post online is something you’re yelling out in the street, or to someone’s face.

Starting to panic? Good.

It’s called your home page for a reason. It’s your digital home. Your friends, family and pets are all there. Watching.

Nikki Osborne on why we should have training to use social media.

Recently I got a comment saying, “You go alright for an old boiler, a bit muttony at times but I’d still give you one.” Imagine walking into my house and yelling that.

THAT’S EFFECTIVELY WHAT YOU’RE DOING! Plus, he had his wife and kids in his profile pic. I wanted to alert his wife but I figured she was already miserable enough.

Then I thought I should message him but I had neither the time nor the crayons to explain his actions to him.

Another time I proudly posted a reel of a show I used to host and someone said “god that show was awful”.

My response was, “Please direct me to your business page and I shall also give you a public review.”

He and his comment disappeared when he felt the conversion to real life.

And then there are the triggered arguments. Oh the hours and dopamine one wastes arguing with numpties online.

Nikki Osborne shares why we need to put down our phones to save our relationships.

Opinions on social media are like arseholes. Everyone has one and nobody wants to hear from them.

Remember: Nobody enters an online debate wanting to change their minds. They want to consolidate them. So why would you waste your evening and sanity arguing with a complete stranger? It’s like taking poison and hoping the other person suffers. NOBODY WINS! Especially your partner who then has to deal with your feral mood.

Make the world a better place. Save your marriage. Put. The. Phone. Down. (Put the bins out).

And this is where training needs to happen. We grew up with safety ads like slip, slop, slap to protect our skin. And look right, look left, look right again to protect our kids crossing roads.

Where’s the campaign: Put the phone down?! Clearly we’re not smart enough to protect ourselves. That’s evident. We’re like Frodo and the Ring, we can’t resist even though we know it’s bad for us.

Meanwhile, our commonsense is telling us to stop but we Just. Can’t. Resist. Adding. One. Last. Comeback … Well done fat head, you’ve just consolidated the algorithm that makes you miserable.

You might have won the battle but you’ve lost the war … that is your happiness.

We need to introduce a Facebook Algorithm Rational Quota. Like an IQ for Facebook. FARQ. Appropriate right? A number measurement on people’s profiles that states how many arguments they’ve gotten into on FB. The lower the FARQ the better. It indicates self restraint but, more so, it’s usually a sign of gainful employment and hobbies offline. So if someone with a low FARQ tells us we’re out of line, chances are, we probably are.

Just put the phone down. That’s my new slogan.

Someone we don’t know insults us? Put the phone down.

Someone disagrees with us? Put the phone down. Trust me, you’ll be happier.

Originally published as The one thing you should do to save your marriage: Nikki Osborne on why we need phone bans