What does the term phubbing mean?
The word was coined by Alex Haigh, a 23-year-old Melbourne resident. ‘Phubbing’ stands for ‘phone snubbing’, and describes “the act of snubbing someone in a social setting by looking at your phone instead of paying attention to them”.
A worldwide bane if you will, now ‘Stop Phubbing’ has become the online home of a campaign against digitally derived rudeness that has started to go global, reports The Independent.
The motive behind the effort is quite straightforward: to highlight the embarrassment of being ignored in public places, text-tapping fingers during personal dinners and coffee dates that might as well have been taken online.
Possibly, the most innovative bit of the campaign are the wedding place cards that you can download to place on tables during your big day. It asks guests to pay attention to the wedding and not fiddle with their phones! According to stats, 87 per cent of teens would rather text than communicate face-to-face with a person.
The ‘Stop Phubbing’ website even allows you to upload photos of your friends/ family who are phubbers to a Name-and-Shame section. Or download posters that read, “No Tweeting, No Facebook, No Instagram, No Foursquare, No Sexting: respect the food, the music and the company you’re in.”
There’s even an option to send phubbers e-mails or stage an intervention to let them know of the devastating effect they could possibly have on their friends.
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