“You’re doing it again,” my partner tells me.

We’re on the sofa, mid-conversation about our respective days at work, and I’ve absentmindedly picked up my phone and opened Instagram. I should state for the record that I don’t generally consider myself to be a rude person. I pride myself on being an attentive partner, a good friend and an engaged listener, so this nasty habit I’ve picked up of snubbing the human being in front of me for my device isn’t one that fills me with joy, by any means. I hate that I do it, but despite my best efforts, it’s something that is proving somewhat difficult to quit.

First coined as a term back in 2012 by an Australian advertising agency to describe the growing phenomenon of ignoring the people right in front of us to scroll through our phones, ‘phubbing’ (aka phone snubbing) is now something that most of us do without even realising. We flick through TikTok, scroll our calendars and reply to messages all while engaging in an IRL interaction, leaving the other party feeling ignored and irritated.

When the average person spends 3 hours 23 minutes on their phone every day – equivalent to around 50 days a year – it’s no surprise that these digital interactions risk overtaking our real ones. One study found that more than 17% of people phub others at least four times a day. Almost 32% of people report also being phubbed two to three times a day. But it’s not just an annoying habit to be on the receiving end of; it can be extremely damaging to our closest relationships. Researchers say that phubbing is a threat to four “fundamental needs”: belongingness, self-esteem, meaningful existence and control, leading to feelings of disconnect, isolation and disrespect.

Knowing all of this doesn’t make it any easier to quit phubbing, though.

Why it’s so hard for us to resist ‘phubbing’ our loved ones – and how to stop doing it