AND pair sits down at a table in a restaurant to celebrate his anniversary. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic started, they need their cell phone to read the QR code leading to the menu. They order a couple of drinks and matching meals, and one of them puts his phone away. Instead, the other continues with it in hand. Check your email, reply to a few tweets, and check your Instagram feed. By the time he finally puts the phone down on the table, the fries they ordered as an appetizer are cold, but not as cold as his partner’s eyes. we used to phubbing case.
This phenomenon comes from the words phone (phone) and neglect (cause contempt)since it refers exactly to this: to despise another person using a mobile phone in the middle social relations. This is something more and more common, which has prompted many studies in which it is analyzed with sociology and psychology How does this affect relationships in a couple, friends or family?
It is true that our lives are becoming increasingly interconnected. A restaurant QR code is just one of many examples where a mobile phone is indispensable. In addition, it helps us to be closer to people who are far away. The problem is that, ironically, if you’re not careful, it can also take you away from those right in front of you. This is the big problem of phubbing and that’s why we have to Be very careful not to hit him.
Where did phubbing come from?
The term phubbing appeared in 2012. At the time, incidents like the one at the restaurant were becoming more common, so the editors Australian Macquarie Dictionary They saw fit to invent a word to define this phenomenon.
They hired a panel of experts and asked them to come up with a new term for “disparaging someone in a social setting by looking at their phone instead of paying attention to it.” They took the aforementioned pun and decided to call this heinous act phubbing.
Since then, there have been numerous campaigns to discredit this phenomenon, as well as studies aimed at analyzing it. social consequences. The results vary somewhat, but in general most point to this as negative.
Put your mobile phone away during social relationships
One of the first studies on this topic was carried out in 2012, shortly after the appearance of the term. In it, a group of volunteers were asked to rate how they felt while talking to another person, with or without a cell phone.
It was clear that the very presence of the telephone was making much more uncomfortable conversationsespecially when they were dealing emotionally important questions. For this reason, it is usually especially harmful in relationships.
Later, another study was published that reproduced the same experiments as in this one, and, curiously, the results could not be reproduced. That is, the participants showed us that dissatisfaction with the presence of mobile phones. But the truth is that there are many other studies, most quite recentlywhich indeed coincide with this first study.
In fact, many of these studies focus on how phubbing affects the recipient emotionally. In general, people who experience this in their social relationships, regardless of their type, feel worse emotionally and even worse. They experience a sense of isolation.
This can happen in relationships, friendships, or even between parents and children, as there are studies pointing to the negative impact on the emotions of teenagers whose parents practice phubbing.
Not all humiliations are the same
What is striking is that these negative feelings towards phubbing are strongly associated with mobile phone use. In fact, a study was conducted in 2021 in which a group of volunteers had to rate how they feel when they are scorned by someone browsing a magazine or a person paying attention to their cell phone. Curiously, in the second case there was a much more negative perception.
However, experts emphasize the importance break social relations. It’s not about removing mobile phones from our lives. At this point, we could hardly. But yes, to enjoy moments in which they are not needed. These moments will never return. Email, Instagram feed or tweets will remain in place when we get home.
Source: Hiper Textual
