By: Damian Anter

When you are out at a restaurant and take a look around, you would be hard-pressed to find a table that didn’t have at least one person with their head down looking at their phone.

There is actually a term for this behavior: “phubbing.” A relatively new term, phubbing refers to the practice of ignoring a companion and, instead, paying more attention to one’s phone. While phubbing may be considered “normal” in today’s world, it has a bigger impact on relationships than we realize.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH PHUBBING?

A team of researchers led by Lynne Kelly of Pennsylvania State University studied that impact by observing the degree to which people took phubbing personally and how they responded to it. To do this, they conducted an online survey, recruiting 404 participants through an online research announcement board at a midsized public Midwestern university.

The researchers measured the data received from the survey based on the responses relating to perceived positive and negative face threats. Positive face is a person’s desire to be perceived as likeable and competent by his or her social groups. Negative face is the need for independence and the freedom to do as one pleases.

They found that cell phone behaviors for the most part were accepted and not perceived as face-threatening acts. Some participants did perceive certain behaviors as face-threatening, though, and that led to negative emotions in those participants.

Behaviors such as repeatedly looking at the phone and playing a game alone on the phone scored the highest in terms of positive face-threat.

Kelly and her colleagues’ study also found that the two most common responses individuals reported using when faced with potential face threats were “say or do nothing” and “I’d start using my own phone so my friend wouldn’t feel bad.”

While people tended to not take phubbing personally, they did find it offensive in certain situations, especially when it was repetitive. While most individuals didn’t respond to these feelings, they were more likely to respond if they were offended.

WHAT LEADS TO PHUBBING?

Is there a correlation between certain individual traits and the tendency to phub? Are there certain factors that would cause someone to feel the constant need to check their phone?

Researchers Tara Suwinyattichaiporn and Mark Alan Generous from Arizona State University sought to answer those questions. They studied how various traits such as online self-presentation, online impression management and self-absorption impact one’s tendency to phub.

Suwinyattichaiporn and Generous conducted an anonymous survey with 150 college students and measured the data received in each of the categories of phubbing, online self-presentation, online impression management and self-absorption.

They found that women tend to phub more than men and that, if an individual is concerned about maintaining their online image and how they are perceived by others, they have a higher tendency to phub.

The results of these studies were not surprising, to me. I personally tend to perceive phubbing as rude, and I feel like it can make a conversation with a friend feel way less personal. You might even be talking to a friend they don’t see often, but there they are with their face in their phone.

Smartphones have made life so much easier, and it’s nice that we can check up on loved ones and friends whenever our heart desires, but the undeniable truth is that humans lived many years without phones. Why can’t we put ours down for a bit, sometimes, and just live in the moment?

Cover image: PsyPost