Phub it Out! Don’t Let Your Phone Ruin Your Relationships

The digital age, or just life, as Young Persons of tender years call it, has generated a new vocabulary of expressions, phrases, acronyms, invented and portmanteau words. Much of our spoken and written communication would be unintelligible to previous generations (as indeed it can be to ourselves).

Language has bent and adapted to meet new needs in ways which at best are clever, lively, entertaining, and at worst are ugly,clumsy and misleading. Particularly problematic are expressions which mask the reality of what they are describing by seeming to legitimise and endorse behaviour, which, well let’s say, isn’t great.


More than just a snub

The word ‘phubbing’ is a good example, once you work out what it means, which isn’t immediately apparent. You’d probably correctly assume from the first two letters that it’s something to do with phone use – isn’t everything – but might get stuck on the whole meaning. Actually, when you find out that the word is a mash-up of phone and snubbing you might be none the wiser, because it’s possible that the word ‘snub’ isn’t as generally understood as it once was.

Snubbing describes ignoring someone or treating them in an offhand or disdainful way. Familiar behaviour, which can be described in a range of colourful ways. So you might think we’re looking at a word which refers to ignoring someone’s phone call, or being a bit offhand when we do speak. But you’d be wrong. It’s much worse than that.

Phubbing refers to ignoring the person you are with in favour of engaging with your phone. The person may be anyone – a partner or spouse, a friend, a family member, your child, a colleague. It’s a familiar sight. The couple at a restaurant each absorbed in their phone, or one of them just sitting there, waiting for the other to come away from it. The group of friends or family all glued to their own devices.

These are only the public displays of non-affection or non-engagement at least. Other, more personal and intimate examples come to mind. Possibly along with the awareness that many of us are guilty of this behaviour to a greater or lesser degree.


Reasons to be fearful

Why ‘guilty’? Isn’t this phubbing just part of the world we live in? Just get over it and accept it! Yes, but…

Research shows the emotional damage it can cause. Those at the receiving end of this pattern of behaviour can feel neglected, unseen, unheard. Trust between people is diminished. Communication is impaired. Relationships suffer.

If you are a phubber and want to break this pattern of behaviour, there are a number of things you can try – although you may well be familiar with and have rejected many of them. Suggestions include:

  • Agree phone-free zones. These might be meal-times, or particular social occasions.
  • Leave your phone somewhere else, at home, or in another room.
  • Set yourself limits. Turn your phone off for certain lengths of time.
  • Try the rubberband trick. Have an elastic band on your wrist and ping it when you automatically reach for your phone when the situation requires or deserves full engagement.

Far-reaching effects

But these techniques, useful as they can be in attempting to control phone-addictive behaviour, don’t address the heart of the matter. The more we use a word like phubbing, the further removed we become from the essence and effect of what it describes. We’re not engaging in something which is mildly off, something which can be dismissed:

  • It’s only a bit of phubbing
  • Everyone does their share of phubbing, it’s only to be expected
  • There are worse things than phubbing

And there are worse things. But instead of the neat inoffensive word, try describing the emotional impact of the effect it has:

  • It’s only a bit of behaviour that’s rude, offensive, hurtful, damaging
  • Everyone does their fair share of diminishing and demeaning the people they love/their friends/people they engage with professionally or socially
  • There are worse things than damaging your relationships and causing people to feel dismissed, unvalued, uncared for

Not so great, is it.


An intruder takes over

There’s another, more graphic way of looking at it. When you engage with your phone rather than who you are with, it’s as if your phone is another person.

You’re having a drink or meal with someone close to you, but what’s this? You have invited a third person to join you, and you give that person all your attention, completely ignoring your partner, spouse, buddy, whoever. Oh mate, what are you doing?

Someone says they need to talk to you, or you sense that there’s something on their mind. You’re all ears, of course you are, but someone else pops up and they claim your attention to such a degree that you hardly focus on the main conversation.

Now imagine it’s you on the receiving end. You know how it feels when someone intrudes on your relationship, whether it’s romantic or social or familial or whatever. You know, or can understand how it feels to be sidelined, humiliated even, when you are ignored in favour of a more compelling presence.

That presence might just be a phone, and it might even not be a particularly sleek or attractive phone, but its power to seduce is overwhelming. The phone is a threat like Jolene was to Dolly.

It seems that the term phubbimg was coined in 2012 and was associated with the McCann advertising agency who started a campaign against the practice originally as a bit of fun. Well, the joke’s over. Phubbing’s been called out. Ditching the expression is a first step to ditching the behaviour.


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