Fabing is an etiquette violation that consists in showing the interlocutor that you are less important than your smartphone. phubbing is a combination of words phone – phone and words snub – rejection, rejection). The interlocutor is saying something, and you start tweeting, you don't look him in the eye, you make it clear that he is choking, that you are not interested in what he is saying, nor his facial expression, nor his gesticulations, nor his body language.
The phone has moved from houses to pockets - from where it makes jumbos. No one is looking at anyone, everyone is looking at a screen and tweeting, sexting and texting on devices that are quickly becoming obsolete. Smartphones have celebrated their 17th birthday on the market, iPhones six, iPads three, and users have completely become younger, they have all turned into teenagers.
At a time when new devices have enabled the availability of everyone in every place, some sociologists of culture point to the paradox that smartphones, tablets, etc. in fact, they are not social media as they are called, but antisocial, because they reduce and destroy social communication and lead to cultural regression, although they have increased the availability of information through geometric progression.
More and more expensive devices, and less and less text - 165 letters, no more. where are you I'm here. Ok :-). There is a terrible tendency to narrow and encrypt communication between people and with the social environment.
In an article in the "Independent", it is cynically observed that fabbing is an avoidance of human communication, actually manipulative. It's easier for people to "manage" through the screen, they don't need attention, patience or a clean shirt to meet, and it's harder for them to demand something unreasonable from you...
Some newspapers write that a movement against this new anti-social habit started in Australia, with the slogans No Tweeting, No Facebook, No Instagram, No Foursquare, Google Hangouts. No Sexting…
Who knows how far it goes? Cyber-sociology is being developed at the University of Edinburgh - they investigate new social phenomena in the information age - including cyber-sex (spotted on America Online) and cyber-orgasm. One practical instruction is: "Work there, play there, love there, but always use a modem for sex in cyberspace!"
