Phubbing is Ruining Your Relationships: What it is and How to Stop

Phubbing (noun): the practice of ignoring one's companion or companions in order to pay attention to one's phone or other mobile device. "Phubbing is ruining my relationship."

You're probably aware that being distracted on your phone isn't improving your connection with others IRL—but did you know that there's over a decade's worth of studies showing that phubbing directly damages relationships?

A 2019 study titled "Daily Technology Interruptions and Emotional and Relational Well-Being" found that on days when participants rated more phubbing than usual, they felt worse about their relationship, perceived more conflict over technology use, rated their face-to-face interactions as less positive, and experienced more negative mood overall.

Another, published in Computers in Human Behavior in 2016, found that texting during a conversation made the talk less satisfying for the people having it, compared to people who interacted without phones.

In 2012, one study even found that the mere presence of a cell phone during a conversation — even if no one was using it — was enough to make people feel less connected to each other. (e.g. a phone simply sitting on a table between two people).

To be honest, the results of these studies aren’t telling us anything we don’t already know. I believe all of us know that the presence of a phone is one of the biggest connection disruptors happening today.

But what I find most interesting is that the phone is more triggering than other distractions. If you’re spending time with someone and their child comes over to interrupt, you’re probably not going to be upset. But if they’re phone lights up and they check it while you’re talking (for no real reason) you might be more bothered.

I think this has something to do with perceiving someone to be “choosing” something (or someone) else over us—email, social media, texting—subconsciously signaling “you’re not important to me”, or “I don’t care”, “I’m not interested”, etc. and thereby triggering a core wound in them (“I’m not good enough”, “I’m unloveable”) etc.

I know it's hard, but make a conscious effort to phub less. Leave your phone in the car or off the table. Turn off notifications. Schedule screen free QT. None of us want to hurt our partners, so bring this behavior into your awareness and consciously make an effort to combat it when you're with the people you care about.

Here's another tool to help with this (because it’s inevitable that we will continue to get distracted by our phones and rupture connection):

My partner and I have started to practice naming what we are going to do on our phone when we use it in front of each other and I’ve noticed it significantly reduces triggers. For example, if we pick up our phone during a conversation we’ll say “I’m adding that to my to do list now so I don’t forget” Whatever it is. Just share. It helps and it keeps you accountable to not getting sucked into the distraction device.