DO YOU regularly phub your partner? Could your phubbing be causing conflict in your relationship?
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Research has shown that phubbing or partner phone snubbing - the term used when people use or are distracted by their smartphone while in the company of their relationship partner - can ruin a romance and lead to higher rates of depression.
Results from a study of 308 adults has led to the development of the Partner Phubbing Scale, a nine-item scale of common smartphone activities that respondents identified as snubbing behaviour.
These include:
- My partner places his or her cell phone where they can see it when we are together
- My partner keeps his or her cellphone in their hand when he or she is with me
- My partner glances at his/her cellphone when talking to me
- If there is a lull in our conversation, my partner will check his or her cell phone.
A second survey showed that 46.3 per cent of respondents had been phubbed by their partner, 22.7 per cent said this phubbing caused conflict in their relationships and 33.6 per cent felt depressed at least some of the time.
The research was conducted by Baylor University in Texas.
Meredith David, assistant professor of marketing said: "In everyday interactions with significant others, people often assume that momentary distractions by their cell phones are not a big deal.
"However our findings suggest that the more often a couple's time together is interrupted by one individual attending to his/her cellphone, the less likely it is that the other individual is satisfied in then overall relationship."
