Phubbing, Snubbing and Existential Anxiety

existential anxiety

Phone snubbing (or phubbing) sounds like something out of Star Wars. Pick up your phone, speak into it – or punch stuff into it – and someone dissolves into dust. But don’t dismiss the thought too quickly! Dissolving into dust sounds very like the mental stage that comes after suffering existential anxiety.

When we adults constantly use our phones instead of talking with and being responsive to our children, it turns their self-esteem to dust. Am I worth their attention? Do they see me? Am I loved?

In case you think I’m exaggerating, let’s conduct a thought experiment and pretend we’re a little babe in arms looking into the face of our parent.

Does a babe in arms feel existential anxiety?

This is a clever baby! So – their thoughts might go something like this:

  • I’m intrigued by that shiny, glowing object my parent is holding. The lights and sounds emanating from it are curious. I’m trying to reach for it and explore it but I can’t get it. It’s obviously not for me.
  • My parent is focused on the phone and touches it a lot. They're not engaging with me. I’m longing for their attention. I feel lonely. I try vocalizing, babbling, and reaching out to them. But it doesn’t work.
  • I don’t understand why they’re so keen on this shiny thing instead of looking at me. I’m confused. Perhaps they don’t love me despite holding me close. I try to catch their eye but they’re looking away. Obviously they can’t see me. Maybe I’m not here.
  • I’m sad and miserable. I’ve been abandoned.

How does existential anxiety arise?

It's something of a crisis to be wondering whether you exist or not! Or whether you're abandoned when you're so little. Or not visible when you can't do anything for yourself.

But here's another thought: how does this sort of situation ever arise in a child of any age who is in the centre of a loving home?

I’ve chosen phubbing as my example, but realistically there are other times that are very similar to phubbing:

  • being too busy with a newborn when you have an older child desperate to stay attached to you
  • doing so many household tasks you’re never “there for them” in any real sense, even though you feel tied to them
  • taking work home to do while they get their own meals and snacks

Of course, these things happen; we’re human! And of course it doesn’t happen all the time. And of course when we do these things occasionally, our child will not fall into existential anxiety.

But the problem with smartphone use around our children just seems to have made an occasional problem very visible and sometimes much worse.

Like me, you’ll have noticed carers in the street pushing a pram and talking into their phones. Or holding a child’s hand but talking to someone "somewhere else". Like me, you probably feel a pang for the poor child!

So let's backtrack to the earlier stage...

How does existential anxiety look when it first rears its head?

Your child might start to feel 

  • a sense of neglect,
  • unimportant and unseen, or
  • a lack of connection to you.

This is the danger zone if we don’t realise what’s happening.

Luckily most of us do. We put aside the chores, the work and the meal-making, whatever, and give them some serious attention. Hopefully quite frequently.

If we don’t, however, we get warning signs and then escalation:

  • a period of disruptive behaviour as a result of these feelings and unmet needs
  • followed by withdrawal from bothering with us
  • and then, in an extreme case, losing interest in anything much.

You’ll maybe remember some years ago how the orphans in Romania were seen lined up in cots totally withdrawn into themselves.

Attention-seeking? Or needing our attention to avoid existential anxiety?

I'm not saying the disruptive behaviour isn’t a child seeking attention – they are, in the true sense of the phrase. To grow up healthily they need our attention and instinctively try to gain it. A child who does get enough doesn’t have to seek it endlessly in the wrong way.

So when we give them enough attention – our full attention rather than semi-attention that's not so much use to them – we validate them and their existence.

I'm seen. I know I'm alive and matter. I can go away and play or go to school and learn, or start giving love and warmth to others.

Another thing about avoiding phubbing a child is this. We teach them – or better – show them how to

  • relate, 
  • make sound relationships at all levels and 
  • engage with real life positively.

That's all good. However many mistakes we make as parents, this won't be one of them!

And we'll surely feel the benefit too!

After all, we need the next generation of adults to have self-esteem, self-control and a good set of coping skills. Not an existential crisis. We’re going to be living under their management when they rule the country!

It will be horrendous if the only way our children know to act in future is what they've copied from the generations above them: texting, blocking or blanking anyone who disagrees with them – or even physically attacking them.

It's worth noting in passing that some of our children are already heading that way on account of the media focus on climate crisis instead of balanced climate change discussion. If they feel they're impotent and ignored in a crisis, and adults are doing nothing, this too can feed into their feelings of not mattering as they grow up. A different form of phubbing?

Anyway – phone snubbing (as representative of any aspect of seeming to ignore our children) should be avoided at all cost. 

I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit unwanted if someone I’m with spends the time on their phone instead of enjoying my company. That definitely phubs me up the wrong way!

So you can just imagine what it does to a child. Let’s avoid any paths that lead to existential anxiety. Give it a go?

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