PHUBBING AND YOUNG ROMANIANS
PHUBBING AND YOUNG ROMANIANS

Summary/Abstract: The main topic of this paper is “Phubbing”, as this new phenomenon is manifest at the level of young people in Romania. "Phubbing" is a neologism invented in 2012 that describes the phenomenon of ignoring people around us in favor of mobile phones. The concept describes the additicion for the online world and the total cut from reality, as social relationships are "set aside" from the phone worls. This paper starts from two research questions: RQ1: What are the social factors that lead to the emergence of the phubbing phenomenon? RQ2: What are the perceptions of young Romanians regarding phubbing? As research methods I have used participatory observation and interviews. The sample on which the interview method was applied has a volume of 15 people aged 17-25 years. The analysis of the results indicates that the design, the graphics, and especially the “socializing” applications such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger are the most important elements which influence the behavior of young people in relation to the social environment. At the same time, both the participatory observation and the interviews made have revealed a paradox - although the young people do not consider phubbing a negative phenomenon, they acknowledge the existence of negative effects as a result of it (health problems, anxiety disorders, neurosis, diminished individual intelligence, difficulty of expression feelings and loss of contact with many people in the offline space).

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