It’s a modern-day love story: 2 people sitting together on the couch in total silence, both scrolling on their phones. ‘Phubbing’ – or the practice of snubbing someone in favour of your phone – is a term that was coined in 2012 by the Aussie branch of advertising agency McCann. And it isn’t just a phenomenon that occurs among partners, but Turkish researchers reckon it could lead to an unhappy marriage. After surveying 712 married people with an average age of 37yo, they found couples who regularly phub each other report lower marriage satisfaction than non-phubbers. The researchers said it “demonstrates the power of effective communication”, with marital conflict likely to arise when someone feels ignored by their significant other. At least they had an easy solution to the problem: couples could just “put their phone away”. Or they could doom scroll together and share the joys of endless cat videos…