“Phubbing” Could Be Ruining Your Dating Life

All those times you check your smartphone while on a date could be ruining your relationship. And Yahoo Health reports that there's now a catchy term for it: "Phubbing." Yep, phubbing — a mashup meaning "phone snubbing" — is a term used to describe the action of a person pays more attention to their phone than whoever is sitting right in front of them. Research published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior concludes that when your significant other pulls out his or her phone to text or watch a cat video when he or she should be spending quality time with you, feelings of depression increase. And (no surprise here) feelings of relationship satisfaction decrease. In the study of more than 450 adults, more than 46% report they've been phubbed by their partner. More than 22% said phubbing causes issues in their relationship. If you or your significant other needs help to stop phubbing, there is a website that supports the journey towards putting the phone down — StopPhubbing.com (don't freak out, it's satire). They offer "statistics" about phubbing, including, "If phubbing were a plague, it would decimate six Chinas," and that over the course of one dinner, a person will see 36 cases of phubbing. Seriously, do we really need a word for this? Maybe we should just call phubbing what it is: Rude. If someone pulls out their smartphone — and starts ignoring you — mid-conversation on a date (or anywhere), you should probably just delete them from your life.