Paying too much attention to your phone is bad for your relationships. This may seem obvious, but it has taken a team of scientists to make us take notice. Phubbing – snubbing someone in your company in order to engage with your phone – has been in the news because researchers in Turkey have found that couples who reported more phubbing also reported less satisfaction in their marriages.
There has been a flurry of research into the impact of phubbing on relationships. Is this because, feeling the effects of myriad micro-ostracisms, we are finally ready to listen? As our phone usage threatens to tip from irksome to destructive, where should the lines of acceptable behaviour be drawn?