You may have heard of a condition known as phantom limb, which is the sensation that an amputated limb is still attached. This often happens to soldiers who have suffered a devastating loss of a limb during a war or a patient who needed to get their leg or arm amputated because of an illness. But have you ever heard of phantom vibration syndrome? It’s a condition in which one’s convinced that our phones have vibrated from a text or a call, when no actual text or call has come in. Still, you swear on your Mother’s pearls that you felt your phone. Well, there’s a reason for that, and this is what it means.But who could blame you? With thousands of new apps and unlimited access to the internet, the world is your virtual oyster. So it’s tough not to feel connected to this immense power.
We are human after all, so we want to be missed and wanted. So that’s one of the main reasons why our brain tricks us into thinking someone missed us and called or texted us.
But the more time that you spend using your phone, the higher the chances that you’ll wind up experiencing this phenomenon of a phantom call or a phantom text.
If this happens once or twice you’re okay. But if you feel that your phone is vibrating even when it’s not on you and it happens for times or more per day, then you have a serious problem.
But as you might have guessed, It’s far more common among teens since they seem to rely on their phones to do just about everything.
For some reason, Smartphone uses tend to feel phantom texts more often than customers who have other featured phones.
Probably not. After all, it’s not technically a disease. But if a user feels his phone vibrating all the time when it really isn’t, he or she will find it difficult to function.
Now we’ve all made that horrible mistake of rushing out of the house and then we realize we’ve forgotten our phones at home. So our day is wrecked, and we spend the day feeling like a crack addict at his first day in rehab.
But you’re not alone. Up to 90 percent of people who own a Smartphone have suffered this phenomenon while their phone was in their pocket.
The philosopher and assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, said that as gadgets and gizmos become more a part of our lives, we develop anxiety caused by these daily technologies.
You become so accustomed to your phone that it’s like it’s a part of your body in the same way that wearing glasses can.
Anything can trigger it from the movement of clothing or muscle spasms. But regardless of the true nature of the sensation, your mind will perceive it as your phone vibrating.
When your phone logs onto the nearest mobile mast, it will send out an RF pulse of different levels of strength. So if you have your phone in your pocket, the nerves in your legs will react to those pulses, creating that phantom sensation.
No, it doesn’t mean that you’re in love with your smartphone, although some people can get really attached to it. When you place your phone in your chest pocket, the RF pulse it sends out can affect your heart palpitations.
Muscle memory can cause you to experience one or two of these phantom text messages, but it will eventually go away.
But they can cause a bit of an obsession according to Randi Smith, Ph. D., a licensed clinical social worker and associate professor of psychology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. There’s just this fear that we’re going to miss a text or that people will think we’re not responsive enough, hence why this phantom vibration syndrome is so common.
Smith, even pointed out that most people who put their phones down, couldn’t go an hour without them, and often reported back to the device like a subservient child.
Too much technology has forced us to stay attached to our devices, which has ultimately prevented us from engaging with other people. So ultimately, human interaction could go out the window in a few short years.
Among them are habits, anxiety, and brain chemistry which all play a role in these phone vibrations that aren’t really there to begin with.
Back in the 1990s, when pagers were the rage, people reported phantom pager syndrome, which at the time was briefly known as ringxiety.
After all, we’re constantly checking to see if a guest, a bus, a train, or a package has arrived. So this is technically no different.
Folks with highly stressful jobs that require them to focus their attention on their smartphone, like doctors, are particularly affected by this. In fact, a 2010 study by Michael Rothberg found that 70 percent of doctors at a hospital in Massachusetts suffered from phantom vibrations.
When people reach for their phone and can’t check their messages or have no messages in social media, they tend to suffer symptoms ranging from major depression, mania, antisocial personality disorders, and several other conditions.
It’s through learning habits that this phenomenon has come to exist. Technology, and regular cell phone usage have rewired us in ways where most people find it hard to navigate in the world. So it’s only natural that we would start falsely perceiving these vibrations when they aren’t really there.
You’ll simply have to spend less time on your phone. It’s tough, we know. But this will slowly decrease your dependency on the phone, allowing you to have a more productive life in the real world.
