Phubbing – we’re all victims, and perpetrators too. A little over a month ago no one knew what phubbing was. Now it’s part of our vocabulary. So what is ‘phubbing’?
Phubbing – we’re all victims, and perpetrators too. A little over a month ago no one knew what phubbing was. Now it’s part of our vocabulary. So what is ‘phubbing’?
Well, it is the act of snubbing someone by paying attention to your phone instead of to him or her. (Phone + snubbing = phubbing.) Phubbing attracted a lot of interest recently when a 23-year old Australian by the name of Alex Haigh decided to wage war against it on stopphubbing.com.
Haigh’s campaign advocates that checking your Facebook timeline instead of paying attention to your buddies may mean the end of civilisation as we know it. “Mobile phones have leapt into our lives. They’re absolutely everywhere, and we haven’t necessarily had time to form any etiquette or conventions surrounding them,” Haigh said in an interview with TheSouthAfrican.com.
His motivation behind the campaign is to start a global dialogue about technology and encourage people to change their behaviour – or at the very least acknowledge that behaviour.
After all, there is nothing more frustrating than when you’re pouring your heart out to a friend or lover and you feel you’re not being heard – especially when that person is viciously tapping away on a phone. On the flipside, there is nothing more tempting when interacting with someone face-to-face than the little red light on your phone alerting you that a message awaits.
Even for multi taskers it is nigh impossible to type out a Facebook status while seriously listening to someone.
Researchers from the University of Essex found that discussing personal and meaningful topics with others in the vicinity of a phone is particularly hazardous to relationships. They say this might be because opening up makes us feel more vulnerable and therefore more threatened by the prospect of the listener being distracted.
While phubbing most definitely has social consequences, it also has a significant environmental impact as smartphones consume far more energy than most of us think.
People who use their phones to access 1.58 gigabytes of data each month are using more energy each year than an average fridge, according to research done by the Digital Power Group. Digital Power Group CEO Mark Mills said: “When you use your smartphone, you are connecting to computers all around the world and turning them on too. It’s as if turning on your car turned on all the other cars in the car park as well.”
Another relatively new techno term is ‘nomophobia’. This means the fear of being without or unable to use your mobile phone. (No + mobile + phobia).
In other words: Another term that points at our overwhelming dependence on mobile technology. So next time you’re out having a meal with friends or family, I challenge you to all pile your cellphones face-down on the restaurant table for the duration of the meal.
The first person to grab his phone out of the pile to check it must pay the bill. Check out stopphubbing.com and the Stop Phubbing Facebook page (which already has over 17 000 likes) to join the revolution yourself.
