Relationship Advice: Curb Your Enthusiasm for Phubbing |
Picture this: You’re out on a romantic date, and instead of taking a lot of photos of your food, catching up on random posts on platforms, and commenting on the restaurant décor in an online review no one asked for, you leave the phone in your pocket, bag, or man purse. Why might this be a good idea?
Devoting all your attention to your dinner partner increases the sense of connection, and if your dinner partner is your lover, it may be the best foreplay you can have in public without touching. Communing via eye contact and responding verbally and nonverbally to the person across the table from you also contributes to a sense of intimacy and relationship satisfaction. The opposite of this is something called phubbing.
Phubbing is ignoring or snubbing people with your phone or other digital device. Ni and colleagues (2025) determined that phubbing is now a widespread behavior that can have detrimental effects on relationships of all kinds. They........