Why Is Phubbing Bad? Here Are Three Ways To Stop Doing It

I was today years old when I first heard the term 'Phubbing.' I had to look it up online to see what it was. Then I asked a couple of my young, hip coworkers if they ever phubbed. They didn't know what I was talking about either so I guess I'm not the last person to this party.

In a nutshell, Phubbing is a mashup of the words phone and snubbing. Phubbing. It's when you ignore the person who's right next to you in favor of whatever text, notification or alert just popped on your phone.

Face it, our phones go with us almost everywhere and because they do more than facilitate the normal phone call they alert us to notifications all the time. Texts, social media messages, Teams and Outlook messages, news and weather alerts, you name it, our phones ping, ding, vibrate and generally call all of our attention to them multiple times a day.

That's fine unless you're supposed to be paying attention to the person who's sitting at the dinner table with you.

It's no surprise that when one or more people in a relationship actively phub the other the relationship suffers. So, what's a 21st century person to do?

It turns out there are some simple steps you can take to stop phubbing and help you focus on the people around you. Here are three simple tips from Healthline.

Make Meals A No-Phone Zone

What? How are we expected to go an hour, maybe more without looking at our phones?

Trust me, it can be done. And it will really open up the conversations around the table.

Leave Your Phone Behind

This is even harder to do than just turning your phone off during a dinner date. But by leaving your phone in another room or in the car when you go to the restaurant you can't possibly be distracted by the constant notifications. You won't even hear them. Don't worry, they'll still be there when you get back to your device.

Challenge Yourself

This one is for those who are serious about stopping their phubbing habit. Set a goal for yourself. Something like going for a whole week without looking at your phone during dinner with your family. Then when you achieve that goal, treat yourself to something. After achieving that goal you can set another one and treat yourself again.

Phubbing. We've all done it. We've all had it done to us.

It's time we stopped.

As someone told me a long time ago, "You control your phone, your phone does not control you."