How Phubbing Can Impact Your Relationship
1. In interactions with one person, you can exchange up to 10,000 nonverbal cues. If you are on your phone, you are not paying attention to the nonverbal cues your partner is giving you and you are giving off cues that show you the priority is your device. Your body language shows how you truly feel.
2. You show that relationship with your device by bending your head, neck, and upper body over it staring at the device, and touching the device. There are critical “Body Windows” at the eyes, neck, heart, and palms of the hands that you would normally have open to your partner that you are now closing off from them and opening to your device. For example, typically when you communicate you turn your heart towards the person and do not have barriers, like folded arms or objects between you as you communicate. So, even if you start talking to your partner while you have a device, the device may keep you from turning completely towards them and may function as a barrier preventing clear communication and signally you want to be open honest and connect fully. I have a chapter in one of my books where I recommend the best body language cues for listening called GENTLER body language that I will put at the end of my responses.
Also, research shows that when you are in communication situations, merely with your device in the room and off you tend to pay less attention to the humans in the room, have lower levels of cognition, and retain less information from the interactions.
3. How To Bring Up Phubbing with Your Partner. Be clear and specific. Say what you want and why. Do not generalize or attack. “I care about you and our relationship and want to connect with you more.” “The last three weeks you have come home on your phone as you enter the house and don’t stop to say hello or hug me and during dinner, you have your phone on and keep checking it and when you watch TV you are bent over it, looking at it or the TV for hours at a time rather than turning towards me and interacting’ I feel ignored. I want to know what you are doing and feeling and would like us to talk about making our relationship a priority and how much time you are on your device when we are together.”
4. How to Stop Phubbing Your Partner Change the settings on your devices to either turn off social media when you are home with your partner or reduce the hours you can be on your device. Have a box by the door to drop your device in when you come through the door to show your partner, they are now your priority. Do not bring your phone to the table or the sofa!
When you are talking with people you form strong neural pathways to the social centers of the brain that make it easier and more comfortable to communicate and bond and according to research even make it easier to make decisions and deal with stress.
The quick shallow decisions you make on a device rewire your brain to create neural pathways to the ego centers of your brain and give you a dopamine hit. You may feel a dopamine withdrawal when you reduce your hours on your devices. Notice the times of day and the locations where you may have created an unhealthy ritual to always be on your phone and see if you cannot have a device with you in that location or at that time. It may be helpful to do activities with your partner that preclude being on a device, like cooking together, exercising and walking together, playing card games, or going to a concert. You can create healthy new rituals and make those activities always device-free going forward.
