Researchers in a survey or undergraduates and medical professionals found that almost 9 of 10 undergraduates experienced phantom vibrations every day and 88% of the doctors specifically, felt vibrations between a weekly and monthly basis.
In a related study, a majority of cell phone users reported experiencing occasional phantom vibrations or ringing once every two weeks, a minority experiences them daily.
Causes
Studies have found that many people experience the false feeling of receiving a text or call. Scientists don’t seem to know whether this is a disease. Previously attributed to technologies rewiring the brain, a different theory claims the syndrome is caused through learned body habits. The cause of phantom vibration is not known. Preliminary research suggests it is related to over-involvement with one’s cell phone. Vibrations typically start taking place after carrying a phone for within one month and one year.
If you use your phone more, you are more likely to feel phantom vibrations. A 2007 graduate study found that people who heard phantom rings roughly used twice as more minutes and sent five times as more texts as those who didn’t. It has been suggested that when anticipating a phone call, the cerebral cortex (your brain) may misinterpret other sensory input (such as muscle contractions, pressure from clothing etc) as a ring tone or phone vibration. While the odd feeling is widespread, many do not seem to consider it a grave problem but some people do. Existing theories surrounding phantom vibration syndrome are based on people’s habits. It is believed that a phone becomes part of a person. Through bodily habit, your phone actually becomes a part of you and you are trained to perceive the phone’s vibrations as incoming text or call. So, due to this kind of habits, it gets easy to wrongly perceive other similar sensations. Think about wearing a pair of glasses; if you are accustomed to your glasses and they almost become a part of you, occasionally, you can forget that you are wearing them. The phone in the pocket is like this. The average person looks at their phone about 85 times a day. Many have very little awareness of the frequency with which they check their phone but studies have found that people are addicted to their mobile phones. Many of us are so concerned about missing a call or text that we have become extra aware of the sensation that mean one is incoming, such sensations include leg muscle spasms, the wind on your trousers likewise movement of the phone in the pocket.
Some experts believe this syndrome is the impact technology has on us. Detecting a vibrating phone has become a habit such that the slightest muscle twitch sensation or perception of clothing moving could be wrongly interpreted as phone vibration.
The tendency to check phone comes from the basic human nature to obsess about things. This is similar to constantly checking to see if a guest has arrived or a commuter straining to hear the arrival of a train. Research published in the computers in the human behavior journal proposes that by individual leaving a phone in the pocket, it becomes part of the body in the same way that wearing glasses can, as it is not difficult to forget they are there. People then perceive other sensation such as movement of clothing or muscle spasms as vibrations from your mobile but it is just a hallucination.
A related study suggested that phantom vibration syndrome is caused by learned bodily habits and agitation caused by everyday technologies. People are just perturbed these days because of the different technologies which include emails and text messages which had us on edge such that we are more inclined to be jumpy and feel something in our pocket as a phantom.
If you react strongly and emotionally to texts, you are more likely to experience phantom vibrations. A study found that a strong emotional reaction guessed how disturbing one finds phantom vibrations. Emotional responses to text messages have been studied before: in a 2008 study carried out by Japanese high school students, it was found to be a major factor in text message dependence.
And that strong emotional response means personality attributes given to emotional reactions correlate with increased phantom vibrations. People who respond more emotionally to social stimuli of any kind will also respond more emotionally to social texts. People who respond more emotionally to social stimuli can be categorized into two groups: extroverts and neurotics. Extroverts have friends and work hard to stay in touch with their friends. Social facts carry more import for them because they care deeply about it, they are directed to it and their regular emotional response to social stimuli carries over into call or texts. And since a strong emotional response to texts forecasts increased phantom vibrations, it makes sense and actually it correspond that extroverts encounter more phantom vibrations. But what correlates stronger are neurotic traits. Neurotics fret about their social relationship. They worry about texts and fear each might signal social doom. The study found that neurotic traits strongly correlated..even more strongly than extroversion with an emotional reaction to texts and phantom vibrations.
Management
Some people seem to think they are the only ones that this happens to and they are really kind of relieved to find there is so much data showing lots of people are encountering this over and over. It seems that the syndrome particularly affects people at the beck and call of mobile phones or pagers. A study surveyed working adults and undergraduates. Among those surveyed, working adults try to end the vibrations much more often than undergraduates. More than 80% of the undergraduates made no attempt to stop phantom vibrations. This does not match the hospital worker’s number at all: almost two-third of them tried to get the vibrations to stop( a majority of that set succeeded).
There is little research on treatment for phantom vibrations. Carrying the cell phone in a particular point decreases phantom vibrations for some people. Other methods include turning off the vibrate mode or using a different device.