Feeling Ostracized by Others’ Smartphone Use: The Effect of Phubbing on Fundamental Needs, Mood, and Trust

Abstract

With phubbing (i.e., “The act of snubbing someone… by looking at your phone instead of paying attention”) being a widespread phenomenon, a sound understanding of its emotional reverberations and consequences for interpersonal relationships is required. To the extent that phubbing is perceived as a momentary act of ostracism, it should influence both emotional and behavioral reactions. To address this issue empirically, we investigated effects of phubbing on variables previously shown to be affected by ostracism. Specifically, we examined in two studies how being phubbed affects participants’ mood, satisfaction of fundamental needs, feelings of being ostracized (Study 1 and 2) and trust (Study 2). In Study 1, participants remembered a situation in which they were either phubbed, phubbed someone else or experienced an attentive conversation. In Study 2 different phubbing behaviors were manipulated during an ongoing conversation. Results from both studies suggest that phubbing triggers negative mood and feelings of ostracism, and threatens fundamental needs. Study 2 revealed that these effects were stronger when phubbing occurred three times (vs. once). Study 2 further demonstrated behavioral consequences of phubbing, namely that trust in a trust game was reduced when participants were phubbed three times (vs. once). We discuss conceptual and practical implications of smartphone use for emotion regulation and interpersonal relations.

No evidence for adult smartphone use affecting attribution of communicative intention in toddlers: Online imitation study using the Sock Ball Task

“…Much of the literature examining the consequences of smartphone use in face-to-face interactions focuses on short- [26,30,31,46,47] and long-term [38,48,49] negative impacts on interpersonal relations and highlights the role of the negative feelings of being neglected and ostracized experienced by the partner, who does not use the phone [30,40,46,47,[50][51][52][53]. Importantly for the topic of the current paper, several findings and theoretical themes in this literature are consistent also with the notion that adults detect how smartphone use during face-to-face interaction is at odds with what they expect from a communicative partner.…”

Psychosocial and personality trait associates of phubbing and being phubbed in hispanic emerging adult college students

“…To assess normality, cutoff scores of |Sk|< 2 and |Ku|< 7 were used (Kim, 2013 ). Using these guidelines, all variables were normally distributed.…”

“…First, politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987;Miller-Ott & Kelly, 2017) in which limited politeness may be associated with adverse personality traits leading to phubbing and/or with negative affect from being phubbed. Second, social exclusion theory (Williams, 2007(Williams, , 2009 has also been utilized in regard to phubbing and being phubbed (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018b;Knausenberger et al, 2022;McDaniel & Wesselmann, 2021) as researchers have argued that phubbing may be a smartphone version of social exclusion (Chotpitayasunondh & Douglas, 2018b;Hales et al, 2018). Thus, social exclusion may be associated with negative affect from being phubbed and/or with adverse personality traits leading to phubbing.…”

No evidence for adult smartphone use affecting attribution of communicative intention in toddlers: online imitation study using the Sock Ball Task.

“…Much of the literature examining the consequences of smartphone use in face-to-face interactions focuses on short- (26,30,31,46,47) and long-term (38,48,49) negative impacts on interpersonal relations and highlights the role of the negative feelings of being neglected and ostracized experienced by the partner, who does not use the phone (30,40,46,47,(50)(51)(52)(53).…”