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Phubbing is defined as ignoring other individuals by using a mobile phone during a face-to-face conversation. The Phubbing Scale (PS) was developed to assess this practice. In this study, we analyze the psychometric properties of the 8-item version of the PS (PS-8) in the Portuguese population, providing validity evidence based on internal structure and on relationships with other variables, and examining item properties, reliability, and measurement invariance across gender. Participants were 391 Portuguese adults (132 men, 259 women) who completed a battery of questionnaires. Confirmatory factor analysis yielded satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices for the two-factor structure (communication disturbance and phone obsession), which was invariant across gender. Item homogeneity and reliability of factor scores (McDonald’s omega) were satisfactory. Validity evidence based on relationships with other variables was provided by positive associations with time spent on the Internet on weekdays and at the weekend, time spent on social networking sites, number of social networks used, Internet addiction, problematic mobile phone use, Facebook intrusion, fear of missing out, and depression. These associations show the addictive component of phubbing and its relationship with mental health. The PS-8 is a short and easy-to-administer scale with adequate psychometric properties for measuring phubbing in the Portuguese population.

IT革命の急激な進展にともなって, 乳幼児期からのテレビ, ビデオ, テレビゲーム, コンピュータなどのマルチメディアへの過剰な接触が, 子どもたちに言葉の遅れを中心としたコミュニケーション障害や情緒障害を引き起こすと主張する書籍が最近続々と出版されている。それらを概観して, その主張と問題点を検討した。, The paper reviews the current discussions about multimedia and developmentaldisorders. Although some authors claimed that excessive exposure of multimedia (television, video, videogame etc) in children is cause of communication, emotion, and other disturbance, the hypothesis has little explanatory power for lack of sufficient evidence. In order to conclude this problem, long-term follow-up studies on a large scale are required.