You know how it goes. You’re out with a friend, enjoying a coffee or, perhaps, a meal. Mid-chat their
smartphone, which is resting on the table, starts vibrating. Your conversation hits rocky ground as they glance furtively at their phone and then back to you. You know you’ve lost them. You stall. “D’you wanna…” you say, throwing the handset a quick look. “I’ll just quickly…” your friend responds.
They grab their phone, tap out a text, or perhaps make a quick call. Or a fairly long one. Phone back on table. “Now, where were we?”
Or perhaps it’s you. Perhaps you’re the phubber – someone who snubs others in a social setting by engaging with their handset at inappropriate moments. Sound familiar?
Phubbing
Ever since phones came out of the house and into our pockets, phubbing has been a problem, even more so since the all-singing all-dancing smartphone came on the scene.
For one man, Australian Alex Haigh, it’s all become too much. The 23-year-old Melbourne resident, presumably the victim of phubbing more times than he cares to count, has recently started a campaign in an effort to end the offensive behavior.
Haigh’s Stop Phubbing campaign includes a website packed with ideas on how you can do your bit to fight phubbing and once again make social gatherings occasions that focus on the people who are there rather than those who aren’t.
The
Stop Phubbing website includes a mountain of material for activists, from anti-phubbing wedding place cards to posters for owners of restaurants and bars warning patrons not to phub while on the premises. There’s even
The Phubbing Hall of Shame where you can upload photos of friends mid-phub.
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| Harihar Adhikari |
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