PHUBMIT - A new smart intervention for estimating and mitigating the cell phone induced ostracism (phubbing)

Abstract

Phubbing or the cell phone-induced ostracism is defined as “snubbing someone by being busy oneself with one’s mobile phone and ignore social surroundings”. Thus, “phubber” is the subject, whereas, ‘phubbee’ is the target of phubbing. The phenomenon is common in all ages, affecting parental, marital, romantic, friendly and professional relations. It is known to be associated to other (phone and all visual) addictions and the so-called social micro-fragmentation. To this end, we propose a novel, unique and privacy-by-design platform, called, henceforth, PhubMit, consisting of (i) a mobile application for phubbers to self-regulate themselves and (ii) a platform for researchers to perform their research studies. PhubMit aims to empower users to combat the tendency to be focused on one’s own phone. It consists the first objective estimation tool of phubbing behavior as it attempts to reduce phubbing by personalized goals and messages, and further provides two more options (a) to the user’s social surroundings to be involved, and/or (b) profit from individual assistance by specialists. Finally, we designed a pilot study so as to estimate the efficacy of our tool.