What is phantom vibration syndrome?

It's when you feel your phone vibrating in your pocket as if you're receiving a call

or text, but you pull your phone out and you look at it and it never actually rang.

Studies are finding that while most don't find this to be very bothersome, a lot of

people are experiencing this.

A recent study of undergraduates found that almost 90% are experiencing this hallucination.

So, the question is, "Why? Why is this happening to us?"

Some claim that technologies like the phone are somehow rewiring our brains, but I think

that a better way to understand the phone and other technologies is in terms of learned

bodily habits.

Think about wearing a pair of glasses.

If you're accustomed to your glasses and they almost become a part of you, you can forget

that you're even wearing them sometimes.

The phone in your pocket is like this.

Through bodily habit, your phone actually becomes a part of you and you become trained

to perceive the phone's vibrations as an incoming call or text.

So, due to these kinds of habits, it becomes really easy to misperceive other similar sensations.

Phone sifts around in your pocket, "I'm getting a call."

Your pant leg rustles, "I'm getting a text."

You have a muscle spasm in your leg, "I'm getting another call again."

But the whole time, just a phantom vibration.

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