Imagine you’re having dinner with your partner: you’re talking, or at least you’re trying to, because he or she has his or her eyes fixed on the screen. It is not an exceptional situation but normality for millions of couples, and not only: it happens with friends, it happens in the office when the boss answers your messages while talking to you. This behavior has a name: phubbingfrom the English phone and snubbing (to ignore), or the act of ignoring the surrounding people in favor of one’s smartphone. And for some years psychology has been studying it systematically, with results that are difficult to ignore.
Meaning of phubbing: why we do it
The term was coined in 2012 by an Australian advertising agency, but the behavior became the subject of psychological research only in the following years, with the massive diffusion of smartphones. Today there are specific studies for different relational contexts: partner phubbing in couples, parental phubbing in the parent-child relationship, boss phubbing in the workplace.
The operational definition is the same in all cases: ignore one or more people physically present and pay attention to the smartphone. This is not an occasional use of the telephone, but a pattern that interrupts face-to-face communication in a way perceived by the other as deliberate.
The first question that the research tried to answer is who is more predisposed to do it and for what reasons. A meta-analysis published in 2024 in Mobile Media & Communication aggregated 79 studies to identify the main culprits of this phenomenon. The most robust result is also the most intuitive: the problematic use of smartphones and social networks. The more a person has a compulsive relationship with the phone, the more likely they are to use it even when it would be better not to.
But underneath there is something more interesting. Among the psychological factors emerge neuroticism, boredom, loneliness and fear of missing out (FOMO), the fear of missing out on something important happening elsewhere, online. Those who do phubbing, in other words, are often not simply distracted: they are looking for an emotional regulation on the screen that they cannot find in the present interaction. The telephone becomes an escape route from a discomfort that pre-exists the conversation.
The consequences on relationships and psychological impact
It is in romantic relationships that the effects of phubbing have been most rigorously studied. Researchers frame it as a form of micro-betrayal: a seemingly harmless gesture that erodes, repetition after repetition, the couple’s trust and emotional intimacy. A meta-analysis published in 2025 in Frontiers in Psychology synthesized data from 52 independent studies on nearly 20,000 participants. The results do not leave much room for optimism: phubbing significantly reduces relationship and marital satisfaction, perceived relationship quality and intimacy. On the emotional side, it increases jealousy and the frequency of conflicts, and reduces the perceived ability to recognize and respond to the emotional needs of others.
The mechanism is not trivial. Attachment theory explains why those with an anxious style, hypersensitive to signs of rejection, tend to interpret their partner’s phone as a real relational threat. On the other hand, those with an avoidant style can actively use it to create emotional distance. In both cases, the device stops being a neutral tool and becomes an actor in the couple’s dynamics.
What happens at work
The work context introduces an additional variable: power. Boss phubbing, i.e. the fact that the boss is always focused on his cell phone even during conversations with his employees, has documented consequences regarding job satisfaction, motivation, organizational commitment and performance. Studies speak of a weakening of the sense of support perceived by the superior and, in the most serious cases, of burnout or the tendency of employees to go to work despite illness, accidents, exhaustion or in conditions of low productivity, resulting in them being physically present but not fully functioning.
The psychological mechanism is the same as that observed in couples, being ignored activates perceptions of irrelevance and lack of respect, but amplified by hierarchical asymmetry: it is difficult to protest to your boss about the phone he is holding in his hand during the meeting.
A question of perception
A fact that cuts across all contexts is particularly interesting from a scientific point of view: those who suffer phubbing report feeling unimportant, undervalued, neglected and disconnected from their interlocutor, regardless of the real intention of the person carrying it out. This is relevant because it suggests that harm does not depend on the objective intensity of the behavior, but on its subjective interpretation — and that even seemingly innocuous phone use can be read as a sign of social exclusion.
A study confirmed that the perception of being phubbed reveals relational distress compared to actual behavior measured externally. In other words, the meaning attributed to the act matters more than the act itself.
What can be done to reduce problematic media use
The literature indicates two priority directions for intervention: reducing problematic media use, not necessarily screen time overall, but its compulsive nature, and working on underlying psychological vulnerabilities, particularly insecure attachment styles. In the organizational field, some researchers suggest the introduction of explicit rules on the use of the telephone during meetings and interactions with collaborators.
However, a significant methodological limitation that runs through the entire literature should be noted: almost all the studies have a transversal design, which prevents establishing the causal direction. It’s unclear whether phubbing damages relationships or whether already troubled relationships increase the likelihood of taking refuge on the phone. Answering this question will require longitudinal studies which, to date, still remain rare.
In the meantime, the numbers speak clearly: ignoring who is in front of us to look at a screen is never a truly neutral gesture, neither as a couple, nor with friends, nor in the office.
