By: Jolie Blue Smith

Imagine you have just met a friend for lunch. You are casually catching up with each other when suddenly *BUZZ BUZZ . . . your friend’s phone gets a notification. Then comes that awkward moment deciding whether to continue talking or pause as your friend checks their phone. We have all experienced this, right? These situations are nearly impossible to avoid in today’s society of ever-evolving technology, but how do people really feel when this happens?

While some people may awkwardly stand by as their friend is checking their phone, it is no secret that this is annoying. In any situation, whether it be a one-on-one conversation or a small group discussion, research shows that checking your phone may not be the best move and its social acceptability truly depends on the situation you are in.

One study, conducted by Robin Leuppert, a graduate student at Hannover University in Germany, and Sarah Geber, a teaching associate at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, looked at these types of situations and assessed how people truly feel when it happens and why they do it. They referred to these situations, when one person checks their phone instead of talking to another person in their direct company, as “phubbing,” a combination of the words “phone” and “snubbing.”

Their study, published in Communication Research Reports, surveyed 218 college students about their personal actions and beliefs towards phubbing in one-on-one interactions and in small group settings. Their survey also asked participants how they perceived phubbing to happen compared with what they believed should actually happen in social situations.

The researchers wanted to know if phubbing would be thought of as a common occurrence despite the perceived accepted knowledge that phubbing is socially incorrect. They also looked at variations in the acceptance and occurrence of phubbing between one-on-one conversations and those between small groups of friends.

The survey results showed that the participants found phubbing to be a common occurrence even though they deemed it as socially annoying or unacceptable. The researchers further found that phubbing is more likely to happen in small group interactions rather than in one-on-one interactions. This is most likely because the more people that are involved in a conversation, the less likely someone is to feel cut off when one person checks their notifications. The conversation can continue with the remaining group members without feeling disrupted by the one member who is checking their phone.

The survey also highlighted that participants engaged in phubbing in both small group and individual conversations because it is thought of as something that commonly occurs. Even though the participants declared phubbing to be annoying or socially unacceptable, they still admitted to phubbing in their conversations mainly because of how often it happens.

Being fully involved in face-to-face conversations can be a struggle. Technology is constantly around us and we can sometimes get sucked into our continuous phone connections. It is important to become aware of our phone-checking behaviors now as smartphones and other devices are not going away anytime soon. As the researchers noted, “we are living in a world that is becoming more and more permanently online and permanently connected.”

As the study concluded, people report engaging in phubbing because they think it is normal behavior. While it’s true, phubbing happens a lot that does not mean it should happen — particularly in one-on-one conversations.

Overall, being aware of interactions you are having and how your actions in that conversation may affect the other person can make all the difference. Just because an action seems to happen all the time does not mean that it should happen all the time.