Personality traits may help predict whether a person will ignore others while using their smartphones, according to a study of healthcare workers in the International Journal of Business Innovation and Research.
The study involved 177 co-workers and looked at how prevalent 'phubbing' is. Phubbing is a portmanteau of the words 'phone' and 'snub' and is the practice of ignoring someone in preference to using one's phone despite being in a situation in which face-to-face conversation and interaction would be the norm. The study might help social scientists and others understand better the notion of smartphone addiction.
The research assessed participants using the so-called Big Five personality traits - openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Personality and phone addiction were self-reported, while co-workers provided evidence of phubbing by others. The team found that people scoring higher in openness, extraversion and neuroticism were more likely to display phubbing behaviour. Conscientiousness, a tendency towards responsibility, self-discipline, and consideration of one's obligations, was associated with less phubbing. There was no significant relationship between phubbing and agreeableness, oddly enough.
If a condition we might call mobile phone addiction exists, then it might be described as an inability to refrain from phone use despite the potential for offline human interaction. To be a true addiction, there has to be associated harm, and the researchers suggest that psychological harm may well occur, either to the phubber or the phubbed. This phenomenon partly explains the relationships between personality and phubbing, the team reports. That said, the researchers emphasise that understanding individual differences behind problematic smartphone use could help organisations address antisocial phone behaviour without treating smartphone use itself as inherently harmful.
Khan, M.N., Shahzad, K. and Shafi, M.Q. (2026) 'This or that, which coworker phubb more; association between personality traits and phubbing behaviour through mobile phone addiction', Int. J. Business Innovation and Research, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp.466–487.
DOI: 10.1504/IJBIR.2026.155659.
Reviewed by Irfan Ahmad.
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