Social media will lead to more loneliness: Sex therapist

Dr Ruth says young people should put their phones aside. Photo / 123RF

The United States' most famous sex therapist has warned that social media is propelling millennials into a future of loneliness in which they will have difficulty forming lasting relationships.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Dr Ruth Westheimer, universally known in the US as "Dr Ruth", said she was deeply concerned that young people would not find marriages that lasted.

The diminutive dynamo who turned 90 last week said: "I'm very concerned about loneliness. People are losing the art of conversation. They're constantly on their iPhones.

"You see the couples sit down in restaurants both with their phone on the table. It's a big problem for the relationships."

She is planning a return to television with a programme aimed at millennials. She will have a young, male co-host and has promised to do her best to let him get a word in.

"What the young people need now is a voice like mine, a little bit old-fashioned and square," she said. "We need to tell them to put the phone aside, and put their energy into forming relationships. You can't ignore the phone, that's the way we live now, but you have to know not to be addicted."

The German-born Dr Ruth, a Holocaust orphan who escaped the Nazis, became an iconic figure in the 80s when she was already in her 50s, with her books, TV and radio appearances during which she gave unprecedented bedroom advice to Americans, matter-of-factly using words that had previously been too shocking for mainstream broadcasts.