Phantom vibrations are sending people to their phone to look at notifications that doesn’t exist…
Fake News
Have you ever felt your phone vibrate, instinctively reached down to check the notification, only to discover there was nothing on your screen? No message, no text, just a phone that eventually goes dark and leaves you staring at your glossy reflection in utter confusion. Well, I don’t mean to cause any panic, but you’ve just had a mini-hallucination.
Expert Opinions
That’s how Dr Michael Rothberg describes the sensation anyway. This phenomenon, often referred to as phantom vibration syndrome is the sensation that your phone has pinged in your pocket but, in reality, it was all in your head.
If you haven’t felt it, you may have heard it – the sensation extends to the sound of a phone ringing or vibrating. Your brain is telling you to rush to your phone to look at an update that doesn’t exist.
So why does this happen?
Are we so used to this sensation that it’s gone beyond our control and we feel the spasm of social media involuntarily? Or are we so eager to hear back from people, to get a like or a swipe that we eagerly imagine it?
Theories have ranged from the mental to the physical, with suggestions that it may be due to overstimulated nerves in the leg that have been triggered by previous vibrations and continue unabated, despite the lack of actual notification on your phone.
Are we overattached?
The initial research isn’t conclusive, but it seems to stem from an over-attachment to our handheld devices. These phantom vibrations tend to occur after one year of having a phone set to vibrate but can also appear after one month of use.
Researcher Dr Michelle Drouin discovered that “almost 9 out of 10 undergraduates at her college experienced phantom vibrations” so it’s likely you’ve felt them as well. So what can be done to remove them?
Once again, the research isn’t totally clear (this is a very modern problem) but potential solutions include moving your phone to a different pocket, changing your ringtone, or even changing your device – basically, anything that undermines the expectation of that next imaginary notification.
