Phubbing means ignoring the person you're with in favour of your phone: a friend is telling a story while you read messages. The word blends phone and snubbing, ignoring someone on purpose, so it always takes two. You'll hear it in conversation and read it in articles about digital habits; neutrally, ignoring someone for your phone.
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phubbing during a conversation; avoid / stop phubbing; a habit of phubbing
- Checking messages while ignoring the friend across the table is phubbing.
- The article describes phubbing during family meals.
- We put our phones away because the constant phubbing was interrupting the conversation.
What changed
First versionI spent the whole evening phubbing alone at home.
RevisionI spent the whole evening scrolling on my phone alone at home.
Phubbing is easy to take as “being on your phone” in general. But it always involves someone being ignored, and alone at home there's nobody to ignore. So here it's simply scrolling on my phone.
Doomscrolling is reading bad news for hours, and you can do it alone. Ghosting is stopping all replies and disappearing. Phubbing is when someone is sitting right across from you and you're looking at a screen.
Your turn
At dinner, Tom kept reading messages while his sister was telling him about her day. He was ___.
Show the answer
phubbing — His sister is right there telling a story while Tom reads messages, so that's phubbing. Doomscrolling is endless reading of bad news and doesn't require ignoring anyone.
Describe a scene at the table where someone stopped listening because of their phone. Use phubbing.
His phubbing became obvious when he asked his sister to repeat the story he had not listened to.
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