Subjectivity, context and contradictions in social phone use and phubbing: a thematic analysis

Investigations into mobile phone use in social situations have focused on its effects on individuals and groups and attempted to identify causal factors. Less is known about how individuals define, justify and make sense of this behaviour. The current study addressed this gap by qualitatively investigating perceptions of phone use in social situations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten mobile phone users, self-identified as eight female and two male and aged 26–69 from a range of professions, most living in Portugal. The data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis to explore the research question, ‘How do people perceive and respond to mobile phone use in social situations?’ Three themes were generated from the analysis: Disrupting the dynamics of social situations, Justifying ‘meaningful’ phone use and Changing but poorly established rules or etiquette. Participants held nuanced and subjective perceptions of phubbing, with context-dependent justifications or criticisms of identical behaviour. This study challenges the attribution of phubbing to unidimensional factors or personality traits. Personal and complex motivations drive behaviour. Establishing one set of social rules is difficult because phubbing perceptions are based on interactions between various subjectively evaluated factors.