research-article

Open Access

Respecifying Phubbing: Video-Based Analysis of Smartphone Use in Co-Present Interactions

Author:
Iuliia Avgustis

INTERACT research unit, University of Oulu, Finland

INTERACT research unit, University of Oulu, Finland

0000-0003-1026-7852
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CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsApril 2023Article No.: 651Pages 1–15https://doi.org/10.1145/3544548.3581052

Published:19 April 2023Publication History

CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 1–15

Abstract

The concept of phubbing (generally defined as a practice of ignoring co-present others by focusing on one's mobile device) is now widely used in studies aiming to understand the effects of smartphone use on co-present interactions. However, most of these studies are quantitative in nature and fail to grasp the interactional context of smartphone use. Drawing on video recordings and utilizing multimodal interaction analysis, the present study examines phubbing in naturally occurring interactions among young adults. Contrary to most previous research, the analysis reveals that disengagement often precedes self-initiated smartphone use rather than follows it. The study identifies factors that affect whether phubbing is reciprocated and whether it is oriented to as problematic. As a result of the analysis, an alternative conceptualization of phubbing is offered. By reflecting on participants’ ways of managing phubbing and its consequences, we discuss design solutions for supporting them in this task.

1 INTRODUCTION

Smartphones have become an integral part of people's daily lives in many countries around the world. Recent studies have shown that mobile technology use is embedded in various everyday activities [8, 49, 74, 79]. Consequently, researchers have raised concerns about the negative effects of pervasive smartphone use on the quality of face-to-face interactions [2, 20, 80], hence the term phubbing (phone snubbing), which refers to situations when co-present others are overshadowed by smartphone use. So far, most of the existing studies on smartphone use have been based on surveys, interviews, or data collected in experimental settings. One problem with these approaches is that they often fail to take the interactional context of smartphone use into account. The generalizability of much-published research on this issue is also problematic, as the mainstream approaches do not consider when, how, and by whom smartphone use is initiated (i.e., its communicational motivation) and how co-present others then react to this. The necessity to analyze smartphone use in real-life contexts has been recently emphasized [15, 37], but relatively few studies have focused on smartphone use in natural communication settings [21, 53, 71].

While quantitative studies focus mostly on the negative side of smartphone use, prior qualitative research in HCI has investigated some of the positive aspects, specifically in the context of collaborative technology use. These studies showed how smartphones could bring topical resources for local conversations [10], resolve conflicts within conversations [74], and become sites for investigation and discussion [9]. Smartphones can also allow participants to produce joint content, such as selfies [88], and act as resources for ongoing joint activities [8]. The organization of individual smartphone use has received much less attention and has been addressed primarily in the context of transport situations [8, 49]. The present study looks to fill this gap by exploring how this type of smartphone use is initiated, carried out, and terminated by participants in face-to-face encounters. Considering the increasing prevalence of smartphones in everyday interactions, it is important to understand how they are used in natural contexts. Therefore, the present study is based on the analysis of video-recorded naturally occurring interactions among young adults in cafes and restaurants. Instead of arguing about the positive or negative effects of smartphone use, we exploit the method of interaction analysis [29, 46, 60] to uncover how the nature of smartphone use is negotiated by young adults themselves.

This study contributes to HCI by advancing our understanding and explicating some nuances of self-initiated individual smartphone use in co-present interactions. We show that the type of smartphone-based activity and the interactional context affect the way in which a particular instance of smartphone use is designed and oriented to by other participants. Instead of treating co-present others as victims of phubbing [1, 2, 7, 87], we describe how the character of one's individual smartphone use is negotiated and collaboratively achieved by all co-present participants. Uncovering these nuances adds to the existing HCI research, which uses video data to describe systematic aspects of smartphone use in natural contexts [8–10, 49, 57, 74, 75]. By analyzing naturally occurring interactions, this study seeks to identify issues with existing definitions of phubbing and offers a new conceptualization for future research. As this study also investigates participants’ practices of returning smartphone users back into conversations, we conclude the paper with design implications, aiming to support participants’ practices for dealing with extended smartphone use.

2 RELATED RESEARCH

2.1 Phubbing and its Impact on Social Interactions

The concept of phubbing is now widely used in studies aiming to understand how smartphone use affects face-to-face interactions [2, 12, 13, 65, 66, 87]. Phubbing has been studied in a variety of different settings and types of relationships: professional settings [7], family interactions [7, 42], and interactions with romantic partners [7, 24, 34, 56], with friends and acquaintances [2], and even with virtual agents [68]. Despite the differences in context, phubbing is defined quite similarly in these studies and usually consists of two parts: (1) ignoring co-present other(s) and (2) focusing on the mobile device instead. Prior studies have reported that smartphone-based multitasking (e.g., texting during face-to-face interactions) leads to lower romantic intimacy with partners [6], lower conversation intimacy [59, 76, 87], a decrease in the level of perceived quality of relationships [34, 56], and a lower level of perceived interaction quality [13, 86]. Phubbing is also associated with individuals experiencing a sense of social exclusion [17]. In light of the growing number of studies on this topic, several literature reviews have been conducted to summarize findings about various phubbing practices and their predictors and impacts [5, 11].

While some researchers claim that phubbing has become a social norm [12], other scholars argue that it has not yet become a normative practice despite being widespread [2]. It is also paradoxical that survey participants often admit to using technology in interactions with others, while also claiming that such behavior is offensive and negatively impacts interpersonal interactions [2, 7]. In part, these discrepancies can be attributed to the fact that most phubbing research uses quantitative methods, and the most frequent data collection instrument is a questionnaire [11], which often disregards the interactional context of device use. More recent studies underline the importance of studying phubbing in the context of participants’ daily environments. It has been shown that phubbing behavior can be assessed differently by the phubbee (the person receiving phubbing) depending on the context: phubbing does not damage relationships on its own, but the negative impact of phubbing is attributed to negative appraisals, which can vary across different situations [24]. There are, however, relatively few studies that analyze actual instances of solitary smartphone use in naturally occurring interactions [52, 70]. In this study, we therefore attempt to understand phubbing as it unfolds in real-life situations. However, phubbing must first be deconstructed and reinterpreted through the lens of interaction analysis, which is done in the next subsection.

2.2 Understanding Phubbing through Interaction Analysis

2.2.1 Managing Multiactivity in the Context of Smartphone Use.

The first part of the definition of phubbing is “focusing on a mobile device.” A problem with this formulation is that it implies that people can focus exclusively either on their mobile devices or on their ongoing co-present interaction. However, studies relying on interaction analysis show that people can do multiple things simultaneously by dividing their attention between main and side involvements [27]. The topic of multiple engagements has already been addressed in studies analyzing how people interact with co-present others while driving [33, 62], drinking [40], performing massage [67], and so on. In studies addressing multiactivity [32], researchers reveal practices participants employ to maintain several courses of action and make their multiple involvements recognizable for co-present others. Rather than assuming “main” and “side” characteristics of different simultaneously unfolding activities, they aim to understand how participants themselves collaboratively negotiate “mainness” and “sideness” [63] of different activities moment-by-moment [50].

This approach to understanding multiple involvements has also been used to study mobile device use in transport situations [33, 49] and in face-to-face interactions [18, 19, 30]. Analysis of naturally occurring interactions revealed that “the allocation of one's attention to engagement in one's smartphone and co-present others is not either-or; rather, it manifests in degrees through the allocation of interactive resources such as one's words, gaze, and corporal configurations, in relation to the device and collocated others” [52]. Therefore, in this study, instead of assuming that smartphone users ignore co-present others, we analyze how they accomplish smartphone use successively or concurrently with other activities, how they make their engagement recognizable and accountable to others, how the character of multiactivity is collaboratively achieved by all co-present participants, and how multiactivity is dissolved.

2.2.2 Displays of (Dis)engagement.

The second part of the definition is “ignoring co-present others.” Although most studies on phubbing mention this aspect [11], a vast majority of them fail to define what “ignoring” means. Other studies define phubbing even broader: as the action of using a smartphone [87] or looking at it [4] during interactions with others. The focus of these studies is often on the frequency of glancing at or using smartphones, and “ignoring co-present participants” is presupposed. However, it has also been shown that smartphone use can be initiated and carried out as a parallel side activity [19], as a resource for co-present interaction [10, 30, 74, 77], or in the context of a joint smartphone-based activity [9, 38, 75]. As a general principle, it is crucial to distinguish between convergent and divergent smartphone use [8]. Therefore, studying the role of smartphones in face-to-face interactions goes beyond observing how much and how frequently they are used by others. In order to understand smartphone use, it is necessary to consider its interactional context.

Previous studies have often utilized the concept of “absent presence” [25] to describe the effects of mobile device use on everyday social interactions. Despite being physically present, smartphone users exhibit delayed responses, mechanical intonations, and a limited range of body movements and face expressions [1]. Interaction analysis covers these aspects with the concept of disengagement. Even before smartphones were created, researchers showed that the degree of participants’ engagement in face-to-face encounters is not stable [26], as well as talk-in-interaction is not continuous [84]. Although participants are constantly in co-presence, their form of co-presence changes [28]. Participants can display their engagement or disengagement, for example, by altering their gaze orientations or bodily positions and configurations. However, even when displaying disengagement, participants do not ignore co-present others. Instead, they closely monitor others’ actions, as the state of co-presence continuously proposes the relevance of a collaborative activity such as talk [28]. Therefore, in this study, instead of assuming that smartphone users focus exclusively on their mobile devices, we analyze how they initiate and carry out smartphone use while being in co-presence with others and how they display their (dis)engagement while accomplishing smartphone-related activities.

3 DATA AND METHODS

3.1 Participant Recruitment

The present study is part of a bigger project that focuses on smartphone use in natural communication settings. Data collected for this study consist of 9 video recordings (1.5–2 hours long each) of naturally occurring interactions among young adults. The data were collected in cafes and restaurants in Saint Petersburg, Russia, between 2018 and 2020. To recruit participants, flyers with information about the study were distributed at a large university in Saint Petersburg. Flyers contained information about the general focus of the study (smartphone use in everyday interactions), the data collection period (3 weeks for each of the years), the type of data to be collected (video recordings), and the reward for participation (payment for lunch/dinner). It was up to the participants to choose whom and how many people to invite and where to meet. The researcher then obtained permission to conduct video recordings in the places of participants’ choice. Recorded encounters involved 2 to 5 participants between the ages of 19 and 25. All participants were native speakers of Russian.

Participation in the study was informed and voluntary: there were no experiments, no hidden agendas or tasks, no involuntary filming, and no hidden cameras. The study focus (smartphone use in mundane interactions) was disclosed to participants during the recruitment process and when they signed consent forms. It is important to note that no instructions were given encouraging or restricting any particular behavior. If participants inquired about their tasks, the researcher explained that the absence of tasks is due to the project's focus on practices as they naturally unfold. All participants consented to the use of unaltered images in scientific publications. Other personal information is anonymized in the presented fragments, and all names are replaced by pseudonyms.

3.2 Data Collection and Analysis

This study draws on multimodal interaction analysis [29, 46, 60] that aims to reveal and describe how (as opposed to how often) participants accomplish various social actions and activities. The reliability of this type of research is determined by the adequacy of recorded data (inclusiveness of relevant details and the size of the data set), the technical quality of recordings (the visibility of analyzed phenomenon), and the adequacy of transcripts (with respect to the video recordings) [35, 73]. To ensure the adequacy and quality of recorded data, this study makes use of a multidimensional video recording setup: several cameras were used to capture the encounter as a whole, all participants were equipped with small wearable cameras for capturing participants’ gestures and on-screen activities, and screen capture software was used for each mobile device whenever technically possible. The researcher set up the cameras at the beginning of the encounter and sat at a different table in the same restaurant/cafe throughout the recording process. Participants were not observed during their encounters. To ensure the adequacy of transcripts, video fragments and corresponding transcripts were discussed and analyzed with other practitioners of interaction analysis during data sessions. Data session is a standard practice in video-based interaction analysis research, which allows one to receive others’ feedback not only on the quality of transcript but also on the validity of analytical claims [36, 46]. For the purpose of analysis, talk was transcribed according to Jeffersonian conventions [45], and bodily conduct (body positions, gestures, gaze orientations) was transcribed using Mondada's conventions [64]. However, as these transcripts are not easily accessible for researchers from other disciplines [73, 82], the excerpts are presented as graphic transcripts [3, 48, 83], and the original talk in Russian is translated into English. The adequacy of the graphic transcripts and translations was assessed by several researchers in our research group.

The validity of interaction analysis research is mostly achieved through the transparency of research claims [73]. Therefore, in line with previous HCI studies using a similar methodology [8, 9, 49, 74, 75], both data (as graphic transcripts) and detailed analysis are presented in the paper. For this study, a detailed examination of participants’ verbal and bodily conduct (gaze, body positions, device manipulation, etc.) was carried out to understand how participants initiate smartphone use, how co-present others orient to it, and how the character of this individual activity is collaboratively achieved by all co-present participants. The presented analysis, therefore, makes the procedure transparent to the reader, which allows the reader to assess the presented analytical claims and replicate the study with a different group of participants.

3.3 Fragment Selection

The data set used in this study could not be based on instances of phubbing since one of the objectives of this study is to redefine the concept. Therefore, instances of smartphone use were collected and categorized instead (258 cases). Through a collaborative viewing of these video fragments, the following cases were excluded from the data set, as they were clearly not related to phubbing: instances where smartphones were framed as essential to the progress of the interaction (e.g., searching for relevant information) and instances where smartphones were used in the context of a joint activity (e.g., collaborative picture taking). As a result, 72 video fragments were further categorized and analyzed for this study. In 28 of these cases, smartphone use was reciprocated by one or several other participants. It is important to note that the categories were not predetermined but arose as a part of collaborative data analysis with three other members of the project. This article illustrates the findings with four excerpts that represent some of the most common categories found in the data set. The first two excerpts are examples of unreciprocated smartphone use. In Example 1, smartphone use emerges in the context of prior disengagement and is not problematized, and in Example 2 smartphone use is "now-relevant" and problematized by co-present other(s). The second pair of examples illustrates reciprocated phubbing. In Example 3, one of the smartphone users resumes the previous conversation, while in the Example 4 the smartphone is used as a tool for introducing a new topic/activity.

3.4 Reflexivity Statement

As the analyst's competence in understanding the participants’ language, culture, and norms is crucial for interaction analysis work, researchers in our project mostly collected data in their home countries (Russia being one of them). The focus of this study emerged as a result of noticing a big difference between the way participants manage smartphone use in the recorded data and the way smartphone use is discussed in the majority of academic and popular literature. During informal discussions with other members of the project, who are of different ages (20s, 30s, and 40s) and nationalities (Finnish, German, and French), we also discovered differences in our personal assessments of problematic smartphone use. However, during collaborative viewing of video-recorded interactions, data were analyzed from the participants’ perspective; that is, we focused on whether smartphone use is visibly problematized by any of the participants verbally or bodily. This approach does not allow us to make any claims about participants’ underlying cognitive responses, but it guards our interpretation of data from potential personal biases.

In addition, due to the project's focus on smartphone use, the majority of fragments in our data sets come from the recorded events where participants frequently use smartphones. While in some of the recorded events participants use their smartphones only occasionally and for short periods, in other encounters, smartphones are continuously used for various purposes (taking photos, answering messages, scrolling newsfeeds). Our collection of excerpts, therefore, mostly represents frequent smartphone users whose practices of smartphone use might differ from those of people who use smartphones only occasionally. This peculiarity of the data set does not affect our main conclusions since interaction analysis research focuses on how (instead of how often) various actions are accomplished. However, it is important to consider the peculiarity of our data set when making generalizations about smartphone use among young adults.

4 FINDINGS

Based on the analysis of smartphone use in naturally occurring interactions, this study aims to explicate the nuances of self-initiated individual smartphone use. First, we briefly describe the interactional contexts where smartphone use occurs (4.1.1). We then present an example of participants collaboratively achieving multiactivity without suspending ongoing interaction or problematizing smartphone use (4.1.2). We also explain how smartphone users can return or be returned to co-present interaction by others (4.1.3) and present an example of participants’ solution to extended smartphone use (4.1.4). One's smartphone use can also be reciprocated by co-present others. We present two more examples to demonstrate what role displays of disengagement play in this process (4.2.1) and how smartphones can be used as a resource for dissolving “smartphone breaks,” that is, situations where all co-present participants are engaged in their individual smartphone-based activities (4.2.2).

4.1 Initiating, Carrying out, and Terminating Individual Smartphone Use

4.1.1 Interactional Context of Smartphone Use.

The concept of phubbing is often used to refer to smartphone use in general. However, smartphone users do not necessarily ignore co-present others, nor is smartphone use always treated as problematic. When orienting to one's smartphone use as problematic or not, participants consider the interactional context and the type of smartphone-based activity. Based on our data set of 72 video fragments, we present different types of contexts in which smartphones were used. The categories are arranged according to the frequency of their occurrence:

•	Smartphone use preceded by disengagement (43 cases). Participants often reach for their phones during lapses in conversations, when a joint activity has ended and a new one has not yet begun, when the other participant is not available for interaction (e.g., choosing an item from the menu), or when co-participants are discussing topics irrelevant to the smartphone user (e.g., a story the participant has already heard).
•	Smartphone use as a “now-relevant” activity (15 cases), that is, smartphone-based activities that can be done later, but there is relevancy for doing them now (e.g., sharing the ongoing interaction via Instagram before the encounter ends, or scheduling the next meeting).
•	Smartphone use as a “now-or-never” activity (6 cases), that is, activities that can be done only at a particular moment in the encounter (e.g., photographing food before it is eaten and its aesthetic quality is ruined).
•	Smartphone use as a response to a summons (5 cases). Participants in the examined data set often receive messages, phone calls, and other notifications. However, they tend to keep their smartphones in silent mode, so summonses are rarely responded to immediately. Messages are typically answered later when there is an appropriate sequential slot for initiating an individual activity.
•	Smartphone use as a means of avoiding conflict or awkward situations (3 cases). Participants occasionally initiate smartphone use in order to suspend the ongoing interaction. In these cases, they usually announce that they would prefer to use a smartphone rather than participate in the current discussion.

Based on our data set, participants most often use smartphones when they or their co-present participants are already disengaged. In these situations, smartphone use is rarely accounted for, but it typically ends when a new joint activity emerges. In the context of “now-relevant” or “now-or-never” activities, participants often suspend the ongoing interaction to initiate smartphone use and account for the suspension by referring to the relevance of the activity. In this paper, we present examples of two of the most frequent categories: smartphone use after disengagement and as a “now-relevant” activity.

4.1.2 Individual Smartphone Use and Collaborative Achievement of Multiactivity.

The first graphic transcript (Figure 1) represents an example of self-initiated smartphone use in the context of prior disengagement in dyadic interaction. Before the excerpt, Daria was complaining about a colleague who had canceled a trip to Tallin with her due to financial reasons. During Daria's extended complaint story [31], Nina started showing some signs of disengagement (lack of gaze orientation to Daria and only minimal verbal responses). Previous studies showed that “boredom” can be one of the predictors of phubbing behavior [4]. While we cannot determine whether Nina is bored based on the video, the data set shows that displays of disengagement often precede self-initiated smartphone use. In this case, Nina answers a previously received message.

A few moments before the excerpt begins, Nina opens a folder on her phone that contains various social networks and messaging apps. Answering a message, however, will take a long time (53.7 seconds from when the phone is picked up to when the message is sent), as Nina does not fully focus on her smartphone. Instead, she engages in parallel multiactivity and attends to two tasks simultaneously: answering a message from a distant friend and participating in the ongoing co-present encounter. As Nina does not ignore her co-present participant nor does she fully focus on her smartphone, this excerpt raises the question of whether this instance of self-initiated smartphone use can be considered phubbing, as defined in previous studies.

At the beginning of the excerpt, Daria starts a new part of her complaint by rephrasing the words of her colleague (panels 1–2). Meanwhile, Nina lifts her gaze up and starts looking at Daria while the folder with apps is open on her phone, but no app is chosen (panel 1). As Daria reaches the end of her turn, Nina turns her gaze back to the smartphone and opens the VK (social network) application (panel 2). Indeed, participants often wait until the end of the turn or the activity to move to a smartphone-related activity [70]. Taking a quick glance at Nina's smartphone screen, Daria becomes aware of Nina's upcoming activity. Throughout the excerpt, Nina does not explicitly account for her smartphone use, and Daria does not request an account. At the time of opening the application, Daria had just finished her reported speech. Direct reported speech, which is recurrently present in complaint stories, was shown to provide recipients with access to the utterance in question and to enable them to provide an assessment for themselves [41]. An assessment and affiliation from Nina might, therefore, be expected. We can see that, even though Nina has a new message, she does not immediately open it. Instead, she turns her gaze to Daria once again and provides a relevant response (panel 3), demonstrating that she is paying attention to her story. While looking at each other, participants then agree that the colleague's excuse is problematic (panel 4).

As the complaint sequence reaches a possible conclusion, a 4.1-second silence emerges. This particular instance of non-talk can be classified as a lapse, that is, an extended period of silence where the next speaker is not selected, nor do they self-select [81]. During these 4.1 seconds, Daria leans forward to eat her soup, while Nina directs her gaze to her smartphone and opens a message from her friend (panel 5). The lapse is expected, and the absence of talk is not problematized. It is also oriented to by Nina as a good sequential slot for resuming her individual smartphone-based activity. Both activities (eating and reading a message), therefore, have a similar status of temporary engagement during a momentary lapse of talk.

As Nina starts typing an answer, Daria leans back and resumes her complaint story (panel 6). While typing a response, Nina demonstrates her ongoing engagement by doing backchannelling (“mhm,” “well yeah”). She later turns her gaze back to Daria, even though the message has not been sent yet (panel 7), thus also bodily displaying that she is still listening. Despite not problematizing Nina's parallel activity, Daria monitors her engagement and often resumes talk only after receiving Nina's display of engagement. As Daria perceives Nina's gaze, she continues talking, and Nina turns her gaze to the smartphone again to finish the message (panel 8). Hence, participants collaboratively achieve the character of multiactivity: Nina occasionally demonstrates her engagement by looking at Daria and providing relevant responses, while Daria orients to these displays before continuing to talk. After sending the message, Nina again displays her recipiency to Daria (panels 9-10). She then locks her phone, puts it away and provides a lengthier reply to Daria after the excerpt is over.

In this excerpt, rather than assuming that smartphone use is problematic, we have analyzed how participants themselves orient to others’ displays of (dis)engagement. The boundary between engagement and disengagement is not clear-cut. Nina manages to initiate and accomplish her smartphone-based activity as a parallel one, while occasionally displaying her engagement to Daria by glancing at her and providing relevant responses. Daria, on her side, does not suspend storytelling and does not problematize smartphone use, as she orients to Nina's displays of engagement. The way multiactivity unfolds in this excerpt is, therefore, a collaborative achievement of both participants. While researchers often problematize smartphone use in face-to-face interactions, this fragment shows how participants themselves manage several concurrent activities without suspending interaction or problematizing smartphone use. This excerpt also shows that previous definitions of phubbing are often too simplified, as smartphone users do not necessarily focus exclusively on their smartphones. Rather than assuming that the smartphone user's attention is either on the device or on the other participant, we should address it as a potentially dynamic process.

4.1.3 Participants’ Strategies for Managing Smartphone Use.

The first excerpt demonstrated that participants are capable of displaying their engagement to co-present others while being engaged in a parallel activity of answering a message. Immediately after her smartphone-based activity was complete, Nina put away her phone and displayed her full engagement, both verbally and bodily. In most of the fragments from the data set, smartphone users return themselves back into the conversation, while co-present others continue talking. Smartphone users either

•	put their phone away, and then join the ongoing activity or initiate a new one (32 cases), or
•	introduce a new topic/activity related to their on-screen activity (18 cases), for example, by describing the contents of the message they received or by showing a picture they found.

However, some smartphone-based activities (such as talking on the phone) require more interactional resources from the user, limiting their ability to display ongoing engagement. When smartphone users are disengaged for longer periods of time, co-present others can problematize this disengagement and use various methods to bring the user back into the conversation. It is important to note that these methods do not always lead to success, and participants sometimes employ several strategies consecutively. In our data set, co-participants managed to re-engage smartphone users by

•	introducing a new topic/activity not related to smartphone use (9 cases);
•	problematizing disengagement (6 cases), for example, by saying “no one listens to me” or “is this very interesting now?” or by reminding that talk is relevant;
•	introducing a new topic/activity based on the observed smartphone-based activity (5 cases), for example, by saying “oh, are you also listening to podcasts?” or by joining picture taking; and
•	asking what the smartphone user is doing (2 cases).

Through these different ways of bringing smartphone users back, participants show their orientation to smartphone use as problematic (e.g., criticizing smartphone use) or not so problematic (e.g., initiating a new sequence related to what was observed on the user's screen). Previous research showed a somewhat contradictory result that people often phub others even though they dislike being phubbed [2, 7]. Our data set reveals that phubbing can be oriented to as problematic or not, depending on the context/stage of interaction and displayed levels of engagement. The type of activity also plays a role: idle activities (such as scrolling through a news feed) are more likely to be problematized than work-related activities or messaging. However, the primary cause for problematizing smartphone use is the user's continuous disengagement in the context of expected engagement, and the next excerpt will illustrate that work-related tasks can also be problematized.

4.1.4 Problematizing Smartphone Users’ Disengagement.

The second graphic transcript (Figure 2) depicts one of the situations in which smartphone use can be problematized by co-present others in multiparty interaction. Three participants (Igor, Daria, and Nikolai) recently met at a cafe and started to discuss what they would like to order. Prior to the excerpt, Nikolai received a work-related phone call from a customer. While he was talking on the phone, Igor and Daria continued discussing the menu. The graphic transcript starts at the moment when Nikolai finishes his phone conversation with a customer (panel 1). However, his smartphone-based activity is not yet finished. In the excerpt, he opens and answers a voice message from his colleague, and his prolonged smartphone use is then problematized by his co-participants. As shown by the analysis, it is not smartphone use per se that is problematized but Nikolai's unavailability to participate in a joint activity.

Just after finishing his phone conversation with an unsatisfied customer, Nikolai calls his colleague a jerk, thus blaming him for trouble at work (panel 2). In doing so, he also provides an account for his extended smartphone use. His girlfriend, Daria, immediately asks him what happened. As Nikolai begins to explain (“he decided to”), he simultaneously opens the VK application that he uses to chat with the aforementioned colleague. When he notices a new voice message, he opens it, abandons his turn, and presses the “play” button. Nikolai then listens to the voice message (on speakerphone) and types a response, while Igor and Daria resume discussing the menu (panel 3). Despite hearing the voice message, both Daria and Igor do not comment on it or orient to it in any visible way.

Eventually, the conversation between Daria and Igor lapses. While Igor continues looking down at the menu, Daria leans back and starts looking at Nikolai's screen as he types (panel 4). She, therefore, can see not only the type of Nikolai's on-screen activity but also its phase. As Daria monitors the progressivity of Nikolai's individual activity, she remains silent, thus orienting to it as temporarily prioritized. Several moments later, Igor, who has been looking at the menu, lifts his gaze up and looks first at Nikolai and then at Daria (panel 5). After noticing Nikolai's disengagement, as well as Daria's visible orientation toward Nikolai, Igor criticizes Nikolai for his extended smartphone use (panel 6). At this moment of interaction, Igor and Daria made their choice of food, and Nikolai's engagement is required to accomplish joint activity (making an order). The source of the complaint is, therefore, not smartphone use per se but Nikolai's unavailability at this moment of interaction.

Daria immediately joins Igor in this complaint, suggesting to Nikolai that he should stop using his smartphone (panel 6). Thus, both participants convey a critical stance toward Nikolai's (dis)engagement. The recording from a wearable camera, however, reveals that Nikolai sent the message and closed the app just 1.2 seconds before Igor started his turn. His smartphone-based activity is, therefore, almost finished when his co-participants attempt to bring him back into interaction. Despite that, Nikolai provides an account for his smartphone use and justifies it by referring to the importance of solving work issues while simultaneously locking the phone and putting it away (panel 7). Meanwhile, Daria and Igor laugh slightly, thus lessening the seriousness of the collaboratively constructed complaint. Previous studies have also shown that co-present others criticize smartphone users in a rather humorous way [39]. Daria then rejects Nikolai's account, stating that it is too late for work (panel 8). Having reached an agreement with Nikolai, participants return to the task at hand—selecting and ordering food.

This excerpt demonstrates that one's self-initiated smartphone use is not just potentially problematic for co-present others, but it is also solvable by participants themselves. Whether participants find smartphone use problematic depends on the interactional context, the general level of engagement, the availability of a smartphone user, the type and duration of activity, etc. As there is ongoing relevance for a joint activity, Nikolai accounts for his disengagement both before initiating smartphone use and after his co-participants requested an account. His co-participants, however, problematize Nikolai's disengagement only when his active participation is required for accomplishing a joint activity.

In this subsection, we have discussed when and how smartphone use is initiated, how it is carried out and oriented to by other participants, and how it is terminated. According to some previous studies, phubbing is especially inappropriate in dyadic interactions [58]. However, our data set shows that the number of participants is not the primary factor for the participants themselves. Nevertheless, we can provide a few general observations regarding the number of participants: (1) self-initiated smartphone use is more common in multiparty interactions, as there are more opportunities for unproblematic disengagement; and (2) participants are more likely to provide an account for their smartphone use in dyadic interactions, as their temporary disengagement is more noticeable for the co-present other.

4.2 Reciprocating Phubbing

As the previous subsection demonstrated, smartphone use is not always problematized. Moreover, as past research suggests, phone use is socially contagious [22]. Phubbing can be reciprocated by co-present others as a response to a discontented action [12], as a way to save face [58], or as a way to re-establish a certain symmetry [39]. Multimodal interaction analysis can provide additional insights into reciprocal phubbing. In this subsection, we demonstrate that the reasons for reciprocating phubbing are often very similar to the reasons for initiating smartphone use in general. Participants often initiate their individual smartphone-based activities when the joint activity is finished or suspended (because of one's smartphone use or other activity not related to technology use) or when there are no engaged participants left.

Two fragments presented further are examples of “smartphone breaks,” during which participants enter and temporarily sustain a state of mutual disengagement. The topic of mutual disengagement has been addressed in interactional research long before smartphones were created [28], and this state, therefore, is not specific to interactions involving smartphone use. In this paper, we will use the notion of mutual disengagement to address situations when all participants of the co-present interaction suspend their gaze orientations toward each other and engage in their individual smartphone-based activities. We show that even during “smartphone breaks” participants coordinate their (dis)engagements and often monitor each other's availability.

4.2.1 Other's Disengagement as a Reason for Reciprocating Phubbing.

The third excerpt (Figure 3) is an example of phubbing being reciprocated in dyadic interaction. Prior to the excerpt, Ekaterina announced the beginning of a new story. When starting to talk, Ekaterina also picks up her phone (panel 1). In this fragment, she suspends a storytelling sequence to answer a message she previously received. Her co-participant, Maria, then also engages in an individual smartphone-based activity, and participants will enter a state of mutual disengagement or a “smartphone break.”

After the first utterance, Ekaterina directs her gaze to her smartphone and unlocks it (panel 2). Previously, Ekaterina exchanged some messages with a friend she plans to meet after this encounter with Maria. Therefore, she is faced with the task of agreeing on a meeting time. Seeing a new message from her friend, Ekaterina opens it at the same time as Maria asks her a clarifying question (panel 3). Ekaterina then lifts her gaze up and provides a response to Maria (panel 4). She then returns her gaze to the smartphone and starts typing a message (panel 5). A 5.3-second gap emerges. In contrast to Ekaterina's task-related self-initiated smartphone use, Maria's subsequent smartphone use (panels 8–10) is related to Ekaterina's prior disengagement.

Even though Maria can guess the type of activity (typing) based on Ekaterina's embodied conduct, she is not aware of its phase, and therefore, the possible completion of the activity cannot be foreseen. This feature of interactions involving smartphone use was previously addressed as “bystander ignorance” [54, 78]. Despite a long period of silence, Maria does not reciprocate phubbing immediately but monitors Ekaterina's involvement, as the continuation of the story is expected. Orienting to the absence of talk, Maria then utters “so?” to facilitate its continuation (panel 6), and Ekaterina immediately responds (panel 7). By saying “a moment” she indicates that the story is not abandoned, but merely suspended, and its resumption will follow later [47]. She then provides an account for the suspension (“I'll answer to Misha”), which, while being short, is enough for Maria, as participants have previously discussed the possibility of meeting the mentioned person.

Only after receiving a reply from Ekaterina, Maria turns her gaze to her smartphone (panel 8), unlocks it, and answers a message she has previously received. Maria could have also engaged in a different activity that was not related to her smartphone. For example, earlier in this recording, she took a book from a shelf and started reading it while Ekaterina was engaged in another smartphone-based activity. Maria's smartphone, therefore, is just one of the objects that can be used in the state of mutual disengagement. For the following 12.7 seconds, both participants do not talk and do not look at each other, but still stay in co-presence, which suggests a continuation of a joint activity (panel 9). As soon as Ekaterina sends the message, she lifts her gaze up and resumes storytelling (panel 10). Maria then locks her phone and starts looking at Ekaterina while she tells the story (panel 11).

This excerpt shows that participants do not necessarily reciprocate smartphone use, but rather other participants’ disengagement. As the first excerpt shows, smartphone users can choose to oscillate between on-screen and off-screen activities, and this type of parallel multiactivity might be expected by Maria. Smartphone use is reciprocated only after Ekaterina verbally explicates the temporary suspension of the storytelling sequence. This mutual disengagement is, however, temporary, and Ekaterina, the one who suspended the joint activity, is held responsible for resuming it as soon as she finishes her individual activity. However, “smartphone breaks” also emerge in contexts where none of the participants is expected to talk. The next example demonstrates how smartphone breaks can be dissolved in this context of prior mutual disengagement.

4.2.2 Smartphones as Resources for Dissolving “Smartphone Breaks”.

Displays of mutual disengagement typically occur during lapses in conversations [28], when the next speaker is not selected by the previous speaker, nor is the speaker self-selected. The last excerpt (Figure 4) is an example of a “smartphone break” that gradually emerges as participants disengage from a conversation one by one and no one is selected to speak next. To restore a common interactional space, one of the phubbees (who is simultaneously a phubber) would have to return others.

Figure 4: Graphic transcript of reciprocated smartphone use in multiparty interaction

Before the excerpt, Daria published a video recording of the participants’ encounter as an Instagram story. After watching the story on Daria's phone, Nikolai took his phone as well and started answering messages. Igor then asked his co-participants what they were going to do next, as at this moment of their encounter food had already been eaten, and their evening had been documented in the form of an Instagram story. Nikolai answered Igor that now they would have to just talk. The excerpt begins with Igor saying, “Great, let's talk,” followed by slight laughter from Daria (panel 1), indicating that the suggestion is treated as rather ironic. Indeed, the participants do not continue talking, and Igor himself turns his gaze to his smartphone. His verbal and bodily conduct is, therefore, in contradiction to each other; while verbally suggesting the continuation of talk, he bodily disengages. In the presented excerpt, Igor then makes three more attempts to reclaim a common interactional space [61].

After Igor's suggestion to talk, a 10-second silence emerges, during which Igor unlocks his smartphone and then picks it up after seeing that he was tagged in several Instagram stories. While continuing to look at his screen, Igor asks Daria why she has posted two stories. In response to that, Daria glances at Igor's screen and provides an explanation (panel 2). At this moment, Nikolai momentarily suspends his activity of writing a message and also glances at Igor. In this first attempt to create a common interactional space, Igor's co-participants, therefore, monitor his availability. However, as Igor himself is bodily disengaged, they promptly return to their individual activities. The discrepancy between Igor's verbal and bodily conduct, therefore, undermines his first recruitment attempt.

Igor then initiates another attempt to achieve a shared focus of attention by mentioning their common friend, whom he sees in an Instagram story (panel 3). Daria responds with a question, and Nikolai quickly glances at Igor. However, he promptly turns his gaze back to the phone, as it is again not possible to achieve a state of mutual gaze orientation (panels 4-5). All participants are then engaged in their individual smartphone-based activities for 19.5 seconds: Igor and Daria are watching Instagram stories, and Nikolai answers previously received messages (panel 6). Participants do not lift their gaze up, nor do they try to initiate any new topics, and only Igor quietly hums for some time during this “smartphone break,” thus reminding others of his continuous presence.

The third attempt to restore a common interactional space takes place after Igor receives a notification of a new message from the Ministry of Emergency Situations (panel 7). He opens it and then summons others’ attention by saying “guys” with a rising intonation. Daria responds 1.9 seconds later, uttering “mhm” without lifting her gaze up, and Nikolai does not show any orientation to the summons, which is clearly addressed to both of them (panel 8). This time, participants, therefore, show a physical reluctance to return to the common physical space, which might be connected to the two previous failed attempts. After reading the message, Igor puts his smartphone away and tells others about the content of the message he just received (panel 9). This third attempt to establish a common interactional space results in success. Daria immediately answers that she is also warned. She then closes Instagram and checks when she received the message. Nikolai, on his side, lifts his gaze up and answers both Igor and Daria, finally achieving a state of mutual gaze orientation with Igor. Participants then briefly discuss the message, put their phones away, and continue talking after establishing a common interactional space.

This excerpt shows how smartphones can not only constrain conversations but also enable them. While participants started to show signs of disengagement before smartphone use was initiated by the first participant, the content of one's smartphone was later used to re-engage other participants and to restore a common interactional space. We can also see that participants do not fully disengage during a “smartphone break.” During Igor's attempts to achieve a shared focus of attention, Igor and Daria demonstrate their potential readiness to be re-engaged by looking at Igor or by providing relevant responses. Igor's first two attempts are, however, undermined by his bodily conduct. Only after showing his interest in a joint activity, both verbally and bodily, does he manage to attract others’ continuous attention.

5 DISCUSSION

5.1 Organizational Aspects of Self-Initiated Smartphone Use

There is growing concern that smartphone use negatively affects the quality of co-present interactions [13, 20, 34, 86]. Most existing studies in this area use quantitative methods that do not take interactional context into account [11], and it has been recently suggested that smartphone use should be analyzed in the context of participants’ daily environments [24, 52, 87]. While prior HCI studies have elucidated many important aspects of collaborative smartphone use [8–10, 74, 75], self-initiated individual smartphone use has received much less attention. This study contributes to the body of HCI literature by uncovering and describing common patterns of individual smartphone use in everyday co-present interactions. Our findings demonstrate when and how young adults themselves initiate, carry out, and terminate individual smartphone use when interacting with others. Below, we summarize the key findings, situate them within previous research and present implications for HCI. We discuss the role of context in the way smartphone use is initiated, factors affecting whether smartphone use is carried out as a temporarily prioritized or as a parallel activity, reasons for reciprocating one's smartphone use and participants' strategies for managing extended smartphone use. The analysis of naturally occurring interactions also allows us to respecify phubbing and suggest guidelines for further research. Drawing on participants' practices of managing extended smartphone use, we propose how the design of mobile technologies can better facilitate social interactions. Finally, we discuss limitations of this study and directions for future research.

5.1.1 Initiating Smartphone Use: The Role of Context.

Many psychological predictors of phubbing were previously identified, such as Internet and smartphone addictions, fear of missing out, and lack of self-control [4, 12, 16]. This study adds to this line of research by revealing situational and interactional factors that can act as predictors of self-initiated smartphone use. Participants often initiate smartphone use after some signs of disengagement are already visible, for example, the absence of talk and/or lack of mutual gaze orientation. Smartphone use can also be initiated as a “now-relevant” or a “now-or-never” activity, or specifically with the purpose of suspending/abandoning ongoing interaction in order to avoid conflicts or awkward moments. While audible notifications and phone calls can have a disruptive effect on co-present interactions due to their unpredictability [85], in the current data set, participants rarely attended to a summons at the moment of its occurrence. Individual smartphone-based activities were usually delayed until an appropriate sequential slot presented itself. If the goal is to understand the predictors and consequences of phubbing in real-life situations, it is imperative to take these situational and interactional factors into account, along with psychological factors.

5.1.2 Carrying out Smartphone use: Multiactivity Perspective.

Depending on the interactional context and the type of smartphone-based activity, participants rely on different ways of initiating and carrying out smartphone use. Indeed, while in some cases, participants manage to carry out their device use as a parallel activity (Example 1), in other situations, smartphone use is temporarily prioritized (Example 2). While participants rarely account for their smartphone use in the context of others’ displayed disengagement, they often do so if they need to suspend the ongoing interaction to accomplish a smartphone-based activity. Despite being an individual activity, one's smartphone use is also a collaborative achievement. Co-present participants are not “passive victims” of phubbing, as they are often presented in previous studies [1, 2, 7, 87]. Instead, they can affect how one's smartphone use unfolds by going along with, reciprocating it, or problematizing it.

5.1.3 Reciprocating Smartphone use: Smartphone Breaks.

The current study enhances our understanding of what has been called contagious phone use [22] or reciprocal phubbing [12, 39, 58]. This phenomenon was previously interpreted as a response to a discontented action [12], as part of face-saving work [58], or as a way of establishing symmetry in interaction [39]. Although we do not reject these earlier findings, we do demonstrate one more possible explanation for reciprocal smartphone use. In fact, the reasons and contexts for reciprocated smartphone use can be quite similar to those of initial self-initiated smartphone use (e.g., disengagement). During dyadic interactions, for instance, if the other person is using their smartphone and displays disengagement, the device can serve as a time-passing tool (Example 3). “Smartphone breaks,” that is, situations in which all co-present participants are temporarily engaged in their own smartphone-based activities, also emerge in the context of prior mutual disengagement (Example 4).

5.1.4 Terminating Smartphone Use and Dissolving Smartphone Breaks.

While previous studies argue that young adults need guidance to control smartphone use and phubbing [16], the current study demonstrates that participants in interactions are capable of managing smartphone use and its possible negative effects on the interaction. Generally, smartphone users return to the ongoing conversation themselves, while co-present others continue talking without problematizing their smartphone use (Example 1). Smartphone users can also be brought back to the ongoing interaction by co-present other(s), who can, for example, introduce a new topic or ask the smartphone user about the type of on-screen activity. However, they rarely problematize one's smartphone use and usually do it in a humorous way, as shown in previous studies [39] and confirmed in this study (Example 2). One important finding that video-based analysis of phubbing reveals is that smartphone use per se is rarely problematized or oriented to as problematic by participants themselves. However, depending on the interactional context and the type of the user's on-screen activity, smartphone users’ disengagement can be problematized with reference to smartphone use.

Smartphone breaks can be dissolved differently based on the interactional context that preceded them. If there is a person who is expected to talk prior to the emergence of a “smartphone break,” they are usually held responsible for resuming joint interaction (Example 3). However, if “smartphone breaks” follow disengagement, smartphone users are left with no ongoing interaction to which they can return (Example 4). In these cases, smartphones are often used as resources for introducing new topics or activities and, therefore, for restoring a common interactional space.

5.2 Research Implications: Respecifying Phubbing

The empirical findings in this study provide a new understanding and conceptualization of phubbing. Prior to analysis, the existing definition of phubbing was deconstructed and reinterpreted from the perspective of interaction analysis. Rather than assuming that smartphone users fully focus on their smartphones, we investigated how participants allocate their interactional resources between smartphone use and co-present interaction. In future studies, we should, therefore, differentiate smartphone use as a temporarily prioritized activity from smartphone use as a side activity. In this paper, we also addressed the aspect of “ignoring others” through the notion of disengagement. Instead of assuming that smartphone users ignore co-present others, we showed how they display changes in their level of engagement. This study shed light on the complex nature of smartphone use in co-present interactions and provided insight into how people use their interactional resources in such multiactivity situations. Furthermore, the study warns against relying on predetermined concepts (as opposed to those derived from data analysis) when conducting research on technology use. The methodology described in this paper can be applied in future HCI studies on smartphone use in other types of social interaction.

Because participants are capable of engaging with others while doing multiple things at once, not every use of a smartphone or glance at it during co-present interactions can be considered phubbing. Further HCI studies on phubbing should also consider this distinction, as ignoring it might lead to incorrect generalizations about the effects of smartphone use on the quality of face-to-face interactions. Based on the analysis of naturally occurring interactions, we can conceptualize phubbing as the practice of visibly disengaging from the co-present interaction by temporarily prioritizing smartphone use and allocating the majority of the interactional resources (verbal and/or bodily) to one's smartphone. However, the allocation of resources is dynamic in nature. Even during short sequences of smartphone use, participants can provide relevant responses, change their body postures and gaze direction, and so on. The orientations of co-present participants toward smartphone use should, therefore, also be considered.

5.3 Design Implications

There is growing interest in the design of mobile technologies that can encourage users to engage in face-to-face interactions [43] and enhance social interactions [23, 72]. Previous solutions include designing technologies that offer meaningful shared experiences [14], create a shared locus of attention [51], or send reminders to technology-abusing users [42]. Studies also showed that smartphone use can be encouraged in situations when it enriches the ongoing activity, for example, taking pictures and videos, sharing memes, and putting on music [51]. As smartphones can both constrain and enable co-present interactions, we should design solutions that would not limit participants’ opportunities to use technology as a resource for interaction. In addition, we should consider designing technology that supports participants’ own strategies for managing smartphone use and its potential negative effects on co-present interactions.

5.3.1 Making Smartphone Use Accountable for Co-Present Others.

Making the type and phase of smartphone-based activities more accountable for co-present others is one of the solutions that can help young adults to manage their and others’ smartphone use. Previous studies showed that co-present others react more negatively to smartphone use (than, e.g., to reading a magazine) since they cannot directly understand the nature and the goal of the on-screen activity [55, 69]. An example of a design solution for this problem is “social displays,” additional displays attached to the backside of the mobile device and revealing the user's current application [44]. The current study supports these previous findings and design solutions by showing some of the ways in which co-present others return smartphone users back into interactions, for example, by commenting on the on-screen activity or by enquiring the smartphone user about the type of activity. As smartphones’ screens are of low visibility due to their size, additional audio or video cues can be a good solution for increasing activity awareness for co-present others.

5.3.2 Designing Smartphones as Resources for Interaction.

This study also showed that in the context of prior disengagement, smartphone users can enhance their co-present conversations by bringing new topics and activities based on their on-screen content. They can, for instance, restore a shared focus of attention by reading the message they received or by mentioning the people or events they saw on the screen. This strategy of restoring a common interactional space can be supported by technology that suggests various topics and activities that can be potentially relevant or interesting for co-present participants (based, e.g., on the accounts they follow). Both solutions, however, raise additional privacy issues that must be addressed separately. We argue that a balance between privacy and the possible use of smartphones to enhance interactions should generally be considered when designing mobile technologies for collocated interactions.

5.4 Limitations and Future Research

It is important to consider the possible limitations of this study when interpreting our findings and design solutions. Our data set of video-recorded interactions captures a specific demographic group (young adults in Russia). Despite this, our findings can also be applied to other demographic groups since they are based on a micro-analysis of social interactions. For example, the identified situational and interactional factors can be very similar in interactions among people of different generations and cultures. However, before conducting quantitative research on phubbing and its predictors and consequences, we should further address how phubbing unfolds in different types of social interactions and how participants manage their own or others’ extended smartphone use. It would be worthwhile to conduct further video-based research on interactions between older adults and adolescents in different kinds of relationships (e.g., professional, educational, family interactions) and across different cultures. To develop design solutions for supporting the various strategies participants use to reengage smartphone users, a more detailed analysis of the strategies should also be conducted. In this regard, participatory design can be particularly useful.

6 CONCLUSION

We presented a qualitative video-based study of smartphone use in naturally occurring interactions among adults. By performing a micro-analysis of recorded interactions, we gained important insights into the way young adults initiate, carry out, and negotiate smartphone use while being in co-presence with their peers. The analysis revealed that young adults manage to display their engagement to co-present other(s) while simultaneously being involved in a smartphone-based activity. Previous definitions of phubbing are, therefore, problematic, as they do not consider that the allocation of one's attention can be a dynamic process. Based on the analysis of real-life situations, we offered a new conceptualization of phubbing, which can be used in further studies aiming to understand the effects of smartphone use on co-present interactions. This study also contributed to our understanding of contagious smartphone use and introduced the phenomenon of “smartphone breaks” for further investigation. By reflecting on participants’ strategies of managing their own or co-present others’ smartphone use, we suggested design solutions for supporting these strategies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (grant no. 323848). Special thanks to the members of the “Smart Communication” project (University of Oulu) for sharing their insights during data sessions.

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Index Terms

Respecifying Phubbing: Video-Based Analysis of Smartphone Use in Co-Present Interactions
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
April 2023
14911 pages
ISBN:9781450394215
DOI:10.1145/3544548
Editors:
Albrecht Schmidt
LMU Munich, Germany60028717
,
Kaisa Väänänen
Tampere University, Finland60011170
,
Tesh Goyal
Google Research, USA60006191
,
Per Ola Kristensson
University of Cambridge, UK60031101
,
Anicia Peters
University of Namibia, Namibia60072704
,
Stefanie Mueller
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA60022195
,
Julie R. Williamson
University of Glasgow, UK60001490
,
Max L. Wilson
University of Nottingham, UK60015138
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Author Tags
Disengagement
Face-to-face interaction
Multiactivity
Smartphone use
Video-based research
Qualifiers
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Respecifying Phubbing: Video-Based Analysis of Smartphone Use in Co-Present Interactions

CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Abstract

1 INTRODUCTION

2 RELATED RESEARCH

2.1 Phubbing and its Impact on Social Interactions

2.2 Understanding Phubbing through Interaction Analysis

2.2.1 Managing Multiactivity in the Context of Smartphone Use.

2.2.2 Displays of (Dis)engagement.

3 DATA AND METHODS

3.1 Participant Recruitment

3.2 Data Collection and Analysis

3.3 Fragment Selection

3.4 Reflexivity Statement

4 FINDINGS

4.1 Initiating, Carrying out, and Terminating Individual Smartphone Use

4.1.1 Interactional Context of Smartphone Use.

4.1.2 Individual Smartphone Use and Collaborative Achievement of Multiactivity.

4.1.3 Participants’ Strategies for Managing Smartphone Use.

4.1.4 Problematizing Smartphone Users’ Disengagement.

4.2 Reciprocating Phubbing

4.2.1 Other's Disengagement as a Reason for Reciprocating Phubbing.

4.2.2 Smartphones as Resources for Dissolving “Smartphone Breaks”.

5 DISCUSSION

5.1 Organizational Aspects of Self-Initiated Smartphone Use

5.1.1 Initiating Smartphone Use: The Role of Context.

5.1.2 Carrying out Smartphone use: Multiactivity Perspective.

5.1.3 Reciprocating Smartphone use: Smartphone Breaks.

5.1.4 Terminating Smartphone Use and Dissolving Smartphone Breaks.

5.2 Research Implications: Respecifying Phubbing

5.3 Design Implications

5.3.1 Making Smartphone Use Accountable for Co-Present Others.

5.3.2 Designing Smartphones as Resources for Interaction.

5.4 Limitations and Future Research

6 CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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