Phubbing could be seriously damaging your relationship and you might not even realize you’re doing it.
In fact, you may not even know what phubbing is, but I bet you’ve been guilty of it at some point.
OK, so picture the scene — you’re on a date, you’re excited and cautiously optimistic that they’re so excited because you’re getting all the right signals.
But when you reach across the table to try and touch their hand, your phone rings and that’s the group chat where everything is happening.
You don’t want to miss out on what’s going on, so spend a little time replying to some messages. Well, that friend of mine is phubbing.
The word, which made it into the Cambridge Dictionary, is a portmanteau of ‘phone’ and ‘snubbing’.
So it basically refers to those times when you give up the human company in front of you for your trusty phone and all its distractions. Rude.
As you can imagine, calling someone names isn’t exactly polite etiquette, and one study found that it has a particularly detrimental effect on romantic relationships.
The study authors explain: “The phenomenon of phubbing, which affects individuals’ social interactions, is an important risk factor for romantic relationships.
“In other words, the fact that partners are too busy with their smartphones during their romantic relationships undermines relationship satisfaction and perceptions of romantic relationship quality.”
The study aimed to find out how those who were phubbed felt about their life and relationship satisfaction and quality compared to how much they were phubbed.
It is probably no surprise that those who have been regularly criticized by their partners have lower levels of satisfaction with their romantic relationship and also view their relationship as being of inferior quality.
Not only that, but researchers have also discovered a link between romantic relationship satisfaction and life satisfaction — which means that by phubbing your partner, you could end up making them even more unhappy. There.
The article explained, “The results … indicate that partner phubbing had a significant knock-on effect on life satisfaction via perceived romantic relationship quality and relationship satisfaction.
“These results reveal that relationship satisfaction and perceived romantic relationship quality decline in individuals who are exposed to partner phubbing behaviors, and that decreased relationship satisfaction and romantic relationship quality impair life satisfaction. ”.