Relationships in general have gone downhill because of two factors:technology and our demanding drive for excitement. Body language, especially eye contact, is very important to a relationship. With one glance we can tell the mood of a close friend, if they are happy or sad. Thus, visual contact has a major impact on the amount of understanding we have with another person and the amount of connection that can be achieved. However, when the telephone, email and message come into play, all of that human interaction is lost. We have increasingly less human contact and start lacking social skills because of a lack of communication. Technology greatly influences our standpoint on how fast we think everything needs to be done. If you put a dollar in the soda machine, you expect the bottle to move forward and fall down to the bottom. You can' t count how many times you' ve  _ the machine if it went too slow for your expectations. You wanted instant results, immediate fulfillment. Another shot against healthy relationships is everyone ' s demanding need for excitement. Society in general has increased its expectations for excitement. Little kids spending time playing outside together now replace that with hours of playing video games alone at home. On the weekends we seize every minute with " exciting" activities, rushing from one to the next. The effect on relationships from all these activities is that they take on more concern and that we have no patience for each other. Gradually we distance ourselves from our loved ones. According to the author, good relationship mainly relies on communicating   _  .
voice-to-voice face-to-face letter-to-letter signal-to-signal