'Phubbing' Or Using Cellphones During Dates Can Ruin Romantic Relationships, Study

Now here's a new kind of snub---'pphubbing' or partner phone snubbing. It happens when you pay more attention to your cellphone than your partner during a date.

Scientists at Baylor University undertook two separate surveys to check how pphubbing is affecting romantic relationships by distracting people from partners, according to HNGN.

One survey was answered by 308 adults who built up the questionnaire for the study, which became the "Partner Phubbing Scale." Another list of 145 individuals were asked nine questions about their partner's smartphone behavior.

Both groups were queried on how often they were pphubbed by their partners. The behaviour included "placing the smartphone in a place that is visible to both of them, holding the smartphone all the time, constantly looking at the smartphone while in a face-to-face conversation, and checking the smartphone during a conversation pause".

The second survey was answered by the partners of those who had answered the first one and participated in the first survey. They were asked "the number of instances they argued because of pphubbing, whether they are still satisfied with the relationship, and whether they felt depressed or anxious because of their partner's excessive cellphone use".

The survey showed 46 percent of the respondents having been phubbed by their partners. While 22 percent said that it led to relationship conflict, 32 percent felt depressed due to their partner's excessive cellphone use.

Still, 32 percent said that they are "still satisfied" with their relationship even though their partners were pphubbing.

"What we discovered was that when someone perceived that their partner phubbed them, this created conflict and led to lower levels of reported relationship satisfaction," James A. Roberts, study lead author and a professor of marketing from Baylor University, said in a university news release. "These lower levels of relationship satisfaction, in turn, led to lower levels of life satisfaction and, ultimately, higher levels of depression."

Hence, the study showed that excessive cellphone use is important for most partners in romantic relationships.

The study will be published in the January 2016 issue of the Computers in Human Behavior.