Library · Phones and the people beside us
How common is it?
Sitting side by side, both on our phones. What surveys of couples actually find, and what they can't tell us.
If you have ever looked up from your phone and found your partner looking at theirs, you are in good company.
What couples say
In a survey of 4,860 U.S. adults in late 2019, the Pew Research Center asked people in relationships about phones. 51% said their partner is at least sometimes distracted by their cellphone, including 16% who said it happens often. About four in ten said they are at least sometimes bothered by how much time their partner spends on their phone.1
So for roughly half of couples, this is a familiar scene. It is also a two-way one: most of us are both the person looking at a phone and the person waiting for someone to look up.
The word for it
Researchers call it “phubbing”, from phone and snubbing: paying attention to your phone while you are with someone. In a set of surveys of 453 U.S. adults, people who felt phubbed by their partner reported more conflict over phones, and that went with lower satisfaction in the relationship.2
A later study of 158 young adult couples looked at “technoference”, the everyday interruptions phones cause in time together. People who reported more of it also reported lower relationship satisfaction and lower sexual satisfaction.3
What this can and can’t tell us
These are surveys. They show that phone interruptions and lower satisfaction tend to go together. They can’t show which comes first. A couple going through a hard patch might reach for their phones more, rather than the other way around. Probably both happen.
What the surveys do show is that the feeling is common and that people notice it. Nobody in these studies is a bad partner. They are people with useful, absorbing devices, sitting next to someone they love.
Try tonight
Instead of “you’re always on your phone”, try making it about both of you: “Shall we both put them down for a bit?” A shared pause lands very differently from a complaint.
Sources
- Vogels & Anderson (2020). Dating and Relationships in the Digital Age. Pew Research Center.
- Roberts & David (2016). My life has become a major distraction from my cell phone: Partner phubbing and relationship satisfaction among romantic partners. Computers in Human Behavior. Summary from Baylor University.
- Hipp & Carlson (2021). The Dyadic Association among Technoference and Relationship and Sexual Satisfaction of Young Adult Couples. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 47(5).
Last reviewed 14 November 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Read how we choose and label evidence.