We all know our phones aren’t great for our relationships, but that doesn’t stop us from reaching for them dozens of times a day.
That’s how so-called phubbing – unintentionally snubbing someone in favour of your phone -creeps into everyday moments.
This can impact your relationship by making partners feel ignored, and parental phone use can really affect children, from weakening bonds with younger kids and denting self-esteem in older ones.
Rather than criticising yourself about your lack of self-control, focusing on being more intentional about when we pick up our devices can be more effective, according to one psychologist.
Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, Associate Professor at University College London, suggests one simple way to stop you picking up your phone mindlessly when you’re with someone else.
Every time you reach for your phone, tell the other person why you’re doing it, and when you’re done, put it down and re-engage.
It sounds almost too easy, but Dr Regehr says this small shift can help change our behaviour as we often check messages, swipe notifications or “Just quickly look something up” without thinking.
What matters is being transparent, so if a message pops up that you need to check, you should tell the person or people you are with: “I just need to reply to this, then you’ll have my attention again.”
By naming it – “I need to check my train times” or “I’m replying to my mum” – you interrupt the automatic habit of checking your phone, and it also signals to the person beside you that they still matter.
“It stops the other person feeling ignored,” Dr Regehr says.
“And it keeps you accountable, because you’re less likely to drift into other apps or endless scrolling.”
Doing this could help improve your relationships, too.
Dr Claire Hart, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Southampton, led a study which involved speaking to 196 people about their relationships and phone use. Overall, the results showed that the more you feel you’re being phubbed, the worse your relationship tends to be.
“Not everyone reacts in the same way,” Dr Hart says. “It depends on personality, but once one person feels ignored, it can trigger retaliation.
“They pick up their own phone, and that’s when it becomes a dangerous spiral as each partner feels rejected or less valued than whatever’s on the screen.”
Every time you are phubbed, you lose connection, and once you’ve left a shared moment to look at a screen, it can take a while to get back to what was going on before.
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