'Phubbing': snubbing your loved ones for your phone can do more damage than you realise

It’s pretty normal to walk through a university campus and see students sitting together, yet ignoring each other for their smartphones – but not in Spain. I’m currently visiting the University of Navarra, where each time I pass the open space outside the Institute for Culture and Society, I see the vast majority of students talking to each other without their phones in hand.

As Inés Olza, a linguist from the institute, explains:

In Spain people like to talk. For them, a conversation is a cooperative process; silence makes them uncomfortable.

This is great news for these students, because ignoring people in favour of a phone – an act known as “phubbing”, or phone snubbing – has dire consequences.

Earlier this month I published a book called The Psychology of Phubbing. In it, I build on my previous research into phubbing, and synthesise findings from 170 other studies – mostly on the effects of phubbing in important relationships such as with partners, supervisors, friends and family members.

Thr research reveals just how serious phubbing can be.

Phubbing trends

People phub in all situations: while commuting, at cafes, while waiting for the bus, during work meetings, in restaurants, at the dinner table, and in bed. They mostly phub others to browse the web, check their bank app, use Google maps and, of course, to check social media.

People are also more likely to phub those closest to them. For instance, study participants phubbed their partners the most, followed by their closest friends, siblings, children and parents. Younger people phubbed more than older people, but there was no noticeable difference between how often males and females phubbed.

Here’s what the consequences were of phubbing one’s children, partners, staff, friends and family members.

Children

When parents phubbed their children, this sent the message their parents weren’t interested in them. The lack of acceptance felt by the children made them feel rejected and socially disconnected. This was associated with lower life satisfaction, and increased anxiety and depression.

Phubbed children were more likely to become addicted to their smartphones, and displayed hostile behaviour online, such as by cyberbullying their peers. Some even experienced academic burnout.

Partners

In partnerships, phubbing led to increased conflict related to smartphone use. It often made the phubbed partner feel excluded, which resulted in less intimacy, reduced satisfaction with the relationship and in turn led to reduced life satisfaction.

In some cases phubbed partners felt jealous because they were worried their partner may be pursuing someone else romantically. This intensified their anxiety and depression and lowered their wellbeing.

Phubbed partners would also spend excessive amounts of time on social media, possibly to regain some of the attention lost at the hands of their partner’s smartphone habit.

Employees

In workplace settings, a boss phubbing their employees diminished the employees’ trust in their boss. This led to lower engagement with their work, decreased job satisfaction and poorer performance in general.

Phubbing made employees feel socially excluded, lowered their motivation and even threatened their self-esteem. To retaliate, employees resorted to misusing the internet at work.

What’s worse is that being phubbed by a boss led to employees phubbing their other colleagues.

Family and friends

Being phubbed by a family member violated the phubbed person’s expectations and made them feel like they don’t matter to the phubber. This weakened their connection to the phubber, lowered their life satisfaction, and increased their loneliness and depression.

In a similar vein, phubbed friends felt socially disconnected. This lowered their friendship satisfaction and life satisfaction and – once more – increased their anxiety and depression. Phubbed friends were also driven to seeking attention on social media.