Elsevier

Computers in Human Behavior

Volume 100, November 2019, Pages 35-47
Computers in Human Behavior

Full length article
Phubbing behavior in conversations and its relation to perceived conversation intimacy and distraction: An exploratory observation study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.06.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • 100 student dyads were covertly observed in a student restaurant.

  • In 62 dyads, at least one person used a phone during the conversation.

  • In 30% of conversations in which phones were used, screens were shared.

  • Recall of phone use was poor – both of oneself and of the partner.

  • If the partner used a phone, persons perceived less intimacy in the conversation.

Abstract

This study examines the occurrence, frequency and duration of co-present phone use, also known as ‘phubbing’ behavior, during a dyadic conversation and its association with perceived conversation intimacy and distraction. Phubbing was measured by covertly observing students having a 10-min dyadic conversation (N = 100 dyads). Afterwards, participants were approached and asked to complete measures of how intimate they perceived the last 10 min of their conversation, and how distracted they perceived themselves and their conversation partners. Results reveal that phubbing occurred in 62 of the 100 observed conversations. In 30% of these 62 conversations, the phone screen was shared. When phone use occurred, the average frequency was 3.16 times per dyad (SD = 2.5), for a median duration of 99 seconds (SD = 225.2). Relatively few participants could correctly recall the occurrence of phone use during the past 10 min of their conversation. Inconsistent findings were found for the association between phubbing behavior and perceived distraction. The partner's phone use (but not one's own phone use), however, was associated with lower conversation intimacy.

Introduction

Phubbing’ is a portmanteau derived from the words ‘phone’ and ‘snubbing’ that is commonly used to refer to the practice of using one's phone during a co-present social interaction. Over the past five years, there has been a marked increase in studies devoted to the relational implications of phubbing (e.g. Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2016, 2018; Forgays, Hyman, & Schreiber, 2014; Hall, Baym, & Miltner, 2014; Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015a, 2017; Misra, Cheng, Genevie, & Yuan, 2014; Rainie & Zickuhr, 2015; Roberts & David, 2016; Vanden Abeele, Antheunis, & Schouten, 2016). This interest is sparked by concerns in the public domain over the harmful effect of using one's phone during social interactions.

Concerns about the harmful impact of phubbing are rooted in the observation that phubbing interferes with interactional processes, thus causing a ‘technoference’ in the relationship (McDaniel & Coyne, 2016; McDaniel & Drouin, 2019). We know from decades of research on non-verbal behavior that affiliation and intimacy in interactions is enhanced when conversation partners display attentiveness for each other (Greene, Derlega, & Mathews, 2006). When conversation partners are distracted by their phone, however, this hinders in expressing those behaviors that contribute to the development of affiliation and intimacy (Misra et al., 2014; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012; Vanden Abeele & Postma-Nilsenova, 2018). As such, conversation partners may interpret the phubbing behavior as impolite behavior that violates how they expect their partner to behave (Kelly, Miller-Ott, & Duran, 2017; Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015a, 2017), and may experience the phubbing behavior as a form of ostracism that hurts their needs by signaling that they are not ‘worthy’ of the phubber's full attention (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018; David & Roberts, 2017; Gonzales & Wu, 2016; Hales, Dvir, Wesselmann, Kruger, & Finkenauer, 2018). While the relationships between phubbing and negative relational outcomes are complex (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015a; Vanden Abeele, 2019), studies show that the former mechanisms explain why phubbing can potentially lead to greater conflict and jealousy in relationships (Halpern & Katz, 2017; Krasnova, Abramova, Notter, & Baumann, 2016), hamper impression formation processes (Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2017; Vanden Abeele et al., 2016) and decrease conversation quality and relationship satisfaction (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018; David & Roberts, 2017; Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2015b; Przybylski & Weinstein, 2012; Roberts & David, 2016).

Extant studies on phubbing have focused extensively on examining attitudes towards, antecedents of, and outcomes of the behavior (see Al-Saggaf & O'Donnell, 2019; Vanden Abeele, 2019 for recent overviews). Interestingly, however, relatively few studies have systematically observed the actual incidence of phone use when people are engaged in a real-life conversation. Humphreys (2005) observed co-present phone use in a fully naturalistic setting. Her study was ethnographic in nature, however, and performed before the widespread advent of smartphones. Systematic, naturalistic observations of phone behavior can be found in a number of recent studies conducted by Kruger and colleagues (Finkel & Kruger, 2012; Kruger et al., 2017; Kruger, Falbo, et al., 2018; Kruger et al., 2018), with two of these studies shedding some light on the phubbing phenomenon. To date, however, a fine grained, quantitative analysis of systematically observed phubbing behavior appears to be lacking. Hence, the first aim of this study is to shed light on the occurrence, frequency, and duration of phubbing behavior in a naturalistic setting. To that end, we conduct a covert, naturalistic observation study that explores the phubbing behavior of two hundred university students during a dyadic conversation (N = 100 dyads).

Section snippets

The nature of phubbing behavior

In less than a decade, smartphones have become the dominant technology used for communication and for accessing and sharing information in the lives of people in both developing and developed nations (ITU Statistics, 2017). Recent smartphone usage reports reveal that people on average spend about 2.5 h per day on their phone, usually dispersed over several dozens of relatively short usage sessions per day (Winnick & Zolna, 2016; Deng et al., 2019; Nielsen, 2018; Oulasvirta, Rattenbury, Ma, &

Research design, ethical clearance and data collection

We used a mixed-method research design to examine the above research questions. The design consisted of (1) naturalistic observations to gather data about co-present phone use and (2) a paper-and-pencil survey to gather data about recalled phone use, perceived distraction, and perceived conversation intimacy. Ethical approval for the study was granted by the university's IRB.

Data collection for the study took place during three weeks in March–April 2016 in a large student restaurant of the

RQ 1: exploring the occurrence, frequency and duration of phubbing behavior

To answer our first research question, which concerns the occurrence, frequency and duration of phubbing behavior, we analyze the observed data first at the dyad level, then the person level, and finally at the level of an individual phubbing event (either as instances of one participant, either instances of both people phubbing simultaneously).

Phubbing behavior was observed in 62 of the 100 dyads. In these 62 conversations, phubbing occurred on average 3.16 times during the 10 min conversation

Conclusion and discussion

This study was guided by three overarching aims: (1) to assess the nature of phubbing behavior during dyadic conversations by drawing from systematic, naturalistic observation data, (2) to examine how accurately participants can recall phubbing behavior, both of themselves, and of their conversation partners, and (3) to explore associations between the observed behaviors and self-reports of perceived distraction and conversation intimacy. The findings show that while phubbing is quite common,

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