New research shows that married individuals and those more open to experience are less prone to phubbing others. The paper was published in Healthcare.
Phubbing is a term that combines “phone” and “snubbing,” referring to the act of ignoring someone in a social setting by focusing on one’s smartphone instead of engaging in conversation. It can occur in various contexts, such as during meals, meetings, or any social gathering. Phubbing can lead to feelings of exclusion and reduced interpersonal connection in those exposed to it.
Phubbing has become increasingly prevalent with the widespread use of smartphones and social media, impacting the quality of face-to-face interactions. Research suggests that phubbing can negatively affect relationships, contributing to lower levels of relationship satisfaction and increased feelings of social isolation.
An important factor that increases the likelihood that a person will phub others is problematic smartphone use. Problematic smartphone use is the inability to control mobile phone use. Studies have linked this phenomenon to psychological characteristics such as proneness to experience negative emotions, impulsivity, difficulties in regulating emotions, and sleep impairment. Other studies have found that people may be more likely to engage in excessive use of mobile phones when they are bored.
Study author Carla Abi Doumit and her colleagues wanted to explore the association between phubbing behavior and personality traits. They were also interested in investigating whether this association is affected by proneness to boredom and loneliness i.e., by how prone to the feeling of boredom people are and by how lonely they feel. They conducted an online survey.
The study included 461 participants aged between 18 and 29 from Lebanon, with 71% being female, 91% single, and 94% possessing a university education. The average age was 22 years. Participants were recruited through student networks and social media.
Participants were asked to complete assessments measuring phubbing behavior (using the Generic Scale of Phubbing), the Big Five personality traits (via the Big Five Inventory, BFI-2), boredom (through the Boredom Proneness Scale), and loneliness (using the Jon-Gierveld Loneliness Scale).
The results indicated that both men and women were equally likely to phub others. However, single individuals were more prone to phubbing compared to their married counterparts. People more susceptible to boredom and those feeling lonelier were also more likely to engage in phubbing.
In terms of personality traits, there was a slight negative correlation between phubbing and traits such as extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. In other words, those more inclined to phub others tended to be less extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, and more conservative, while also being more prone to experiencing negative emotions.
When controlling for boredom proneness, only openness to experience remained significantly associated with phubbing. Openness to experience denotes an individual’s readiness to explore new ideas, experiences, and creative endeavors, reflecting their level of curiosity and imagination.
Further analysis showed that extraversion was positively associated with phubbing among individuals with low levels of loneliness and boredom, but negatively associated among those with moderate to high levels of loneliness and boredom. In summary, extraverted individuals were more likely to phub others if they were neither lonely nor bored, but less likely if they experienced boredom or loneliness.
“We have been able to show a significant association between marital status, boredom proneness, and open-mindedness with phubbing behavior. Moreover, in people with moderate to high boredom proneness levels, high extraversion is significantly associated with less phubbing behavior,” the study authors concluded.
The study sheds light on the links between phubbing and personality. However, it should be noted that the study design does not allow any cause-and-effect inferences to be drawn from the data. Additionally, study participants were young people only. Results might not be the same on other age groups.
The paper, “Association between Personality Traits and Phubbing: The Co-Moderating Roles of Boredom and Loneliness,” was authored by Carla Abi Doumit, Diana Malaeb, Marwan Akel, Pascale Salameh, Sahar Obeid, and Souheil Hallit.