
There's an actual research term for ignoring someone while paying attention to your phone: phubbing.
When it happens to a romantic partner, it's called partner phubbing.
A study of 423 people examined partner phubbing alongside relationship satisfaction, perceived stress, and sleep quality.
Greater partner phubbing was associated with lower relationship satisfaction and greater perceived stress.
Those factors, in turn, helped explain its association with poorer sleep quality.
Because the study was cross-sectional, it can't prove that phone use caused these outcomes.
Still, repeatedly choosing the screen over the person beside you may be connected with more than simply annoying them.
© Psychological Reports