Phantom vibration syndrome: Up to 90 per cent of people suffer phenomenon while mobile phone is in pocket

Authored by independent.co.uk and submitted by Leonard95

Nine of 10 people suffer from “phantom vibration syndrome” - where they mistakenly think their mobile phone is vibrating in their pocket - it has been claimed.

Dr Robert Rosenberger, philosopher and assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, said the phenomenon was caused by “learned bodily habits.”

Research, published in the Computers in Human Behaviour journal, suggests that by person leaving a phone in their pocket it becomes "part of their body" in the same way that wearing glasses can, as it is easy to forget they are there.

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“People then perceive other sensations such as movement of clothing of muscle spasms as vibrations from your mobile, but it’s just a hallucination,” said the professor.

In an interview with the BBC, he said: “One recent study of undergraduates reports that 90 per cent of them say that they’ve experienced these phantom vibrations.”

Dr Rosenberger said people were “just so anxious these days, because of all of our different technologies”, which include emails and text messages, “have us on edge.”

“We are more inclined to be jumpy and feel something in our pocket as a phantom vibration," he adds.

WeMayBeTrapped on July 11st, 2020 at 20:03 UTC »

Phantom notices with AR glasses are going to be terrible, non-stop hallucination.

Bach2theFuchsia53 on July 11st, 2020 at 20:02 UTC »

I often think I hear actual notification sounds. I may have a problem.

robocord on July 11st, 2020 at 19:14 UTC »

Back in the days of pagers (aka beepers) we referred to that as beepilepsy.