‘Phubbing’, The Social Faux Pas You Didn’t Know You Were Guilty Of
Ever felt that bubbling rise of anger when you’re chatting to a friend and all of a sudden they reach for their phone and mentally exit the room? Sure they throw you the odd “mmhmm”, glancing up up once in a while to pay lip service to your exchange but they’re not actually listening. Well, there’s a name for this scourge on our social interactions - it’s called “phubbing”.
Phubbing is a portmanteau of the words “phone” and “snubbing”. The term, which originated in Australia, is used to describe “the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention”.
Is this desire to favour our phones over real life interaction with people we know and love the end of the world as we know it? The people at Stop Phubbing certainly think so; they’ve set up a website to help raise awareness of this frustrating behaviour and kill it before it kills civilization.
[Photo: Kolasinski/BFRA/REX/Shutterstock]
So if you reckon getting your phone out once in a while during dinner with friends or a chat with your mum is no biggie, these disturbing statistics may have you reconsidering your sucky attitude.
According to Stop Phubbing, “an average restaurant will see 36 cases of phubbing per dinner session. This is equal to spending 570 days alone while in the company of others.”
The effects of phubbing literally leaves a bad taste in the mouth: “97% of people claim their food tasted worse while being a victim of phubbing.”
And what about the generation who have never known a world without mobile phones? Stop Phubbing say “87% of teens would rather communicate via text than face-to-face.”
So who are the world’s greatest phubbing offenders? New York City takes first place closely followed by Los Angeles then London. Toronto is the least worst offender.
[Photo: stopphubbing]
According to an article published by Vice phubbing breeds phubbing: ‘There’s a sort of phubbing karma at work: When you phub someone, they’re likely to phub you back. This has more or less become an accepted way to communicate. People phub more when they see it being done to others and when it happens to themselves. This reciprocity makes the behaviour seem normal.’
Etiquette advisors have even gone so far as to label phubbing “the end of civilisation.” Think about that next time your pull you phone out when you’re round your nans.
