# An Explorative Model to Assess Individuals' Phubbing Risk
## 7 Discussion  
This study was driven by the desire to better understand the phubbing phenomenon that is still new and, despite all, not exhaustively investigated. Overall, our paper provides a multidimensional model of phubbing. Having a clear set of factors related with phubbing, will be useful for all those web platforms and online services that can be reached via mobile devices. Indeed, it would be possible for them to evaluate users' phubbing risk by means of a pretty economic profiling phase. Phubbing does not appear to be exclusively related to addiction behaviors. Nevertheless, our results highlighted a strong connection of phubbing with online addiction behaviors (e.g., Social media addiction, Internet addiction) as well as with psychological and psychosocial determinants of online compulsive behaviors (i.e., Trait and Social Anxiety). Our findings appear in line with the previous literature that defined phubbing as a compulsive behavior put in place to reduce anxiety and discomfort due to social interactions [14; 17]. For instance, we reported a positive correlation between phubbing and both trait anxiety and social anxiety, confirming that those with a higher level of anxiety are those who do more phubbing. However, our results suggest that phubbing could be related also with constructs not directly linked to addiction behaviors (e.g., ICT Pervasivity, Virtual Sense of Community). Indeed, when addiction variables were already considered within the multivariate model, other factors still contributed to explain phubbing's variance. Mobile devices seem to be \"habit-forming\" but these new habits (e.g., checking habit) do not imply necessarily an addiction. Repetitively inspect the content accessible through smartphones could be experienced more as a diversion (sometimes even as an annoyance) than an addiction [42]. Thus, phubbing appears to be a complex phenomenon not only definable and predictable by its addiction component. Interestingly, a greater number of social networks seemed to push individuals to interrupt face-to-face interaction to check their phones less often. They also experience a lesser need to check  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{c}{**MANCOVA General Model (\(\mathbf{r^{2}}\); 0.36)**} \\ \hline
**Factor** & **Wilks\({}^{\prime}\,\lambda\)** & **F** & **Power (\(\mathbf{\beta}\))** & \(\eta^{2}\) \\ \hline ICT Pervasivity & 0.969 & 5.616(2,351) *** & 0.857 & 3.1\% \\ Number of SNSs & 0.969 & 5.639(2,351) *** & 0.859 & 3.1\% \\ SMS usage & 0.946 & 10.114(2,351) *** & 0.985 & 5.4\% \\ Social media usage & 0.928 & 13.639(2,351) *** & 0.998 & 7.2\% \\ Internet usage & 0.941 & 10.961(2,351) *** & 0.991 & 5.9\% \\ Neuroticism & 0.977 & 4.211(2,351) *** & 0.737 & 2.3\% \\ STAI (Trait) & 0.969 & 5.620(2,351) *** & 0.857 & 3.1\% \\ Virtual Sense of Community & 0.977 & 4.160(2,351) *** & 0.732 & 2.3\% \\ \hline \hline \multicolumn{5}{c}{**Principal effects and Parameters**} \\ \hline
**Parameter** & **Phubbing Factor** & **F(\(\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\mathbf{\  
their phones. Probably, those individuals who have many social networks do not give great importance to them, or they could already have a more structured self. In either case, they may not need to interrupt the conversation to check their phone so often. Moreover, Virtual Sense of Community seem to act as protective factor in our model reducing the phone obsession component. This result may suggest how the successful development of a social identity through virtual environments could reduce the perceived need to engage in phubbing. When addiction related observables were considered within our model, Trait Anxiety also appeared to reduce the phone obsession component of phubbing, while Neuroticism seemed to increase it. ICTs' availability (i.e., pervasivity) increases the overall phubbing frequency. Usually, the more people are exposed to ICTs and online services in their daily activities, the more their digital media literacy rises [43].