"i Can't Believe i Phubbed Up Our Friendship!": Examining Relationships between Loneliness, Problematic Smartphone Use, Friend Phubbing, and Life Satisfaction

As one of the dark sides of smartphone use, phubbing (i.e., snubbing others during face-To-face interactions by using their smartphones) has drawn increased attention in recent years. A growing literature on phubbing has widely examined psychological and social problems related to phubbing. However, very little is known about how certain psychological states and outcomes-mainly loneliness and life satisfaction-occur in relation to phubbing. This study examined the relationships between loneliness, problematic smartphone use, phubbing, and life satisfaction, particularly within friendships. For this study, college students (N=513; 188 men, 323 women, and two others) aged 18 to 29 (Mage=19.85 years) completed self-report measures online. Structural equation modeling was used to measure the model, and the relationships of this study were conducted via SPSS and AMOS. As expected, the model yielded a good fit, and the findings showed that loneliness positively and indirectly predicted the enactment of friend phubbing through its influence on problematic smartphone use, which negatively predicted life satisfaction.