Phantom Vibration Syndrome Distracts

Picture someone walking along and suddenly feeling their phone vibrating. They take their phone out of their pocket and realize they have no missed call, text or notification. This person is now subject to phantom vibration syndrome. Phantom vibration syndrome is common to cell phone users. What happens is people may use their cell phones so much that when it is in their pockets, they feel their phone vibrate or even ring even though it isn’t. Studies have shown this is common in teenagers and young adults.

“If we are feeling vibrations in our pockets, then it’s probably about time we stop looking at our phones so much. It’s clear that this is happening because we are overusing our phones and probably have addictions to them,” says Arrowhead student, Nick Russell.

It has been proven by a Harvard professor that people who suffer from this are really just having small muscle spasms in their legs. They interpret in their minds that it is their phone because they are so connected to them. In reality, these people are just hallucinating that their cell phones are going off. This also accounts for them hearing their ring tones when they really aren’t.

“I think it happens because we are so used to our phones and so aware that we are expecting a text or call that our we actually make ourselves think we got something,” says Russell. “ I think it gets really annoying. It gets in the way of something I might be doing. Its also weird that our cell phones are bringing us to the point of muscle spasms if you think of it,” he explained. It has been proven that 64% of the net generation checks there cell phone’s every 15 minutes and 42% check for missed phone calls. 62% of generation Z are checking for texts and 34% are checking for missed calls every fifteen minutes.

“This can be a really bad if you’re doing something you can’t get distracted from, what if you were driving and you think you felt your phone go off. You could feel the need to check your phone even though there might not be anything there.” Says Russell

Phantom vibration syndrome is becoming more and more common as technology advances. This was a proven fact along with the slowly growing addiction people have for their phones. It also affects or distracts students from studying or paying attention in class.

“This vibration happens to me about six or seven times a day. It gets very annoying for me. I think it would probably stop happening so much if I took less time on my phone usage. I think the habit can be broken, along with this phantom vibration,” Russell Says.