“Phubbing”: what is it and are you guilty of it?

It’s always exciting when a new word enters the language. For a start it reminds us that language is alive and evolving just like life itself. Then it also signals that something new is happening around us and the language is growing to accommodate that expansion. So, have you been phubbed lately? Or perhaps you’ve been doing a bit of phubbing yourself? It is easier to phub of course when you haven’t experienced the pain of being the phubbee. The good or bad news, depending on your stance on phubbing is that psychologists have published the first substantive study into why we phub.

Just in case you haven’t used the term (but don’t worry, you will definitely have been phubbed even if you haven’t been phubbing yourself) to phub is to snub someone in a social setting by concentrating on your phone instead of talking to the person directly. In the age of the smartphone we accept this behaviour, even if we don’t like it. We would never accept someone just reading a newspaper when we had met for coffee so what these researchers wanted to know is why do people phub?

To phub is to snub someone in a social setting by concentrating on your phone instead of talking to the person directly.

The researchers found first of all that having been phubbed and then phubbing themselves means that people do accept that it is “normal” behaviour. The question then becomes how did it become considered normal and the answer seems to lie in addiction.

According to these researchers from the University of Kent it is internet addiction that is leading people to phub. The people who experience this addiction showed up as having a fear of missing out combined with a lack of self control.

So, the next time you are being phubbed have mercy on that phubber and console yourself with the warming thought that the phubbers of this world are just fear-filled little gits with no self control.