Snubbing the person in front of you by attending to your phone instead — a word invented to order inside an advertising agency.
Adrian Mills, a McCann account director, with David Astle, May 2012.
// Where it sits
Words here are found in the wild or coined by a writer. Commissioned by an agency is its own category.
What it really means
Words arrive here two ways. Some are found — someone noticed people saying it, and a lexicographer wrote it down. Others are coined, by a writer or a researcher who then watched the language take it up.
Phubbing was ordered.
In May 2012, the advertising agency McCann convened a room of lexicographers, authors and poets for what was framed as a Macquarie Dictionary linguistic experiment. The brief: produce a word for the act of ignoring someone in favour of your phone. The room produced phubbing — phone + snubbing — credited to account director Adrian Mills, working with David Astle.
McCann then created the Stop Phubbing campaign that spread it.
So the word and its own publicity campaign were built in the same building. That is not a scandal — the behaviour it names is entirely real, and giving it a name is genuinely useful. But it is an unusual provenance for something that now appears in academic literature, and it is worth knowing when you read that a word entered the language.
Because it did enter, and the research followed. There is now a ten-item Phubbing Scale with two measured factors — Communication Disturbance and Phone Obsession — and prevalence data. A 2024 study of 1,351 Spanish students aged 12 to 21 found roughly 50% exhibited phubbing behaviour, with 74.5% always or almost always keeping a phone within reach.
What makes phubbing worth naming, as distinct from rudeness in general, is the presence. Ghosting is absence — you are simply not there. Phubbing requires a body in the room, seated, nodding, physically attending, while attention is elsewhere. It is deniable in a way that leaving is not, which is why it is so hard to raise without sounding petty.
This page is educational and not a diagnosis. If phone use is straining your relationships, a therapist or counsellor is a better place to take it.
Where it comes from
A manufactured portmanteau — invented to order at a lexicographers' workshop rather than observed in the wild. Almost no other dictionary word has that provenance.
Myths & misconceptions
Phubbing bubbled up organically from young phone users.
It was created inside an advertising agency. McCann ran the coinage exercise and then created the 'Stop Phubbing' campaign that spread it — a word and its own publicity campaign, built together. The behaviour was real; the word was commissioned.
Phubbing is a minority behaviour.
A 2024 study of 1,351 Spanish students aged 12 to 21 found roughly 50% exhibited phubbing behaviour, with 74.5% always or almost always keeping a phone within reach.
Compare & contrast
Phubbing vs ghosting
Ghosting is disappearing from a conversation entirely. Phubbing is staying physically present while withdrawing attention — it requires a body in the room, which is what makes it sting in a way an unanswered message doesn't.
| // | Phubbing | Ghosting |
|---|---|---|
| Physically present | Yes | No |
| Deniable | Highly | Barely |
| Ongoing | Yes | Terminal |
| Coined | 2012 | 2000s |
How it connects
- Chronically Onlinethe state phubbing is a visible symptom of.
- Zoom Fatiguethe other attention-load term with a real measurement instrument behind it.
Tell it apart
Questions people ask
- Who actually coined it?
- A Macquarie Dictionary word-coining session in Sydney, May 2012, run with the agency McCann: the word is credited to McCann Group Account Director Adrian Mills, working with David Astle.
- Can phubbing be measured?
- Yes — via a ten-item Phubbing Scale covering two factors, Communication Disturbance and Phone Obsession.
- Is it linked to anything harmful?
- Studies associate it with problematic internet use and lower self-esteem. That is a correlation, not a diagnosis — this page is educational, and a mental health professional is the right person to see if this is affecting you.