Phantom Phone Vibration: 90% of us affected
Do you often think your phone has just vibrated in your pocket but when you check there are no messages or alerts? You are far from alone in this case, its an illusion created in your brain.
In a online survey conducted by Smart Caller and supplemented by data from this US study. it has been revealed that 90% of smartphone users are feeling the effects of the phantom vibration syndrome at some point. These people think that their phone vibrates when it is not.
So what is the cause of this illusion? The research suggest that it "Bodily habits" developed by the mobile phone users said Dr. Robert Rosenberger at the Georgia Institute of Technology. People who frequently wear glasses forget their presence. It would be the same phones placed in users' pockets. Thus, the phones become "a part of their body."
Anxiety and iDisorders
People then perceive other sensations like clothing movement and muscle spasms as vibrations from their mobile phone, but it's just a hallucination.
Some earlier studies show that phantom vibration syndrome is not considered by most users as something "painful". The study of these new phenomena is of great interest to researcher, specifically changing behaviours related to the growing intimacy of technology and its users. It could named "iDisorders" according to the term coined by Larry Rosen psychology professor. A concept that encompasses the full impact of technology on our psychological health. We are now so anxious we interpret a simple signal of neurons located below our pocket as an incoming call while it is a simple itch"
