I experienced it once more this morning. The uncanny buzz while waiting in the queue for my coffee. As my hand moved to check my phone, it dawned on me there had been no buzz at all, and so without thinking I tried to unlock my phone. It was not until I had removed the device from my pocket that I realized my brain had fabricated this whole experience.
Phantom vibration syndrome is an example of a neurological “quirk” that is modern, unique, and perplexing. In its similar fashion, the cases of phantom vibration skepticism have rared so much, they have lost the fundamental essence of being debated over. Think back to any encounter you faced with head-scratching experience of ‘phantom vibration skepticism’ once dialed into the tech realm. I believe I recall fiddling with my smartphone pressed against my thigh towards the end two-thousand nine, when technology was still viewed as a necessitated luxury and carried a bold statement for the individual supporting it. My mind had its cogs whirring and taking a pause mid-conversation was decidedly ‘normal’, but unsurprisingly, without physically exiting the building I encountered the same nill scenario.
For me, the experience was laughable. Perhaps a quizzical sympathy an lapsed part of my brain was attempting some diversion trick. Unlike what turned fifteen years, trying to figure out one too many of life’s puzzles. With information void phones, only to riddle is the soothing reminder, waiting to bound my mental baggage, has meant more subconscious dependency crossing the lines blurring endless wondering reigns supreme.
“Phantom vibration syndrome” is the name that science has given this phenomenon. We feel “phantom” notifications all the time due to our relationship with technology, which is something that lacks a revealing term. Most research suggests claim 80-90 percent of us are experiencing some form of this irregularity. Almost everyone with smartphones feels imaginary notifications from time to time.
We have a collective void of hallucination formed owing to technological advancement that takes place two decades backs. We moved past a stage where technology was absent.
To bring you my example, I left my phone at home while going to the park with my child last week. The two hour trip triggered imaginary notifications. In layman terms, I get buzzes in absence of triggers. It feels unhinged but tells us so much about ourselves and our relationship with technology, mercilessly ignoring the capacity to differentiate between reality and the concepts we’ve developed. We all are victims of this phantom notification plague.
I’m not sure stem of this is the unsetting piece, is that I’m missing device or in fact, the idea of blaming and relying on technology to fulfill our void. Either way, I don’t care what the social experiment is, but it feels incredible concerning.
What I find most incredible about phantom vibrations is how plainly they cut to the rewiring of our nervous systems. Our brains have adapted to subsume phantom stimuli to such an extent that they fill in the gaps when the actual stimuli are absent. If that doesn’t give you pause, allow me to suggest it should.
I still recall sharing a table with a neurologist at a dinner party a few years back. While chewing overcooked salmon, I brought up these buzzes which are not there. She was vividly excited that special way scientists become when faced with issues that are troubling yet deeply fascinating.
“You know what this implies, right?” she said, pausing with her fork in mid-air. “You resurrecting this new kind of sensation tailored just for your device is staggering in itself. Your brain is not simply interpreting sensory data – in a more intricate manner, it is forecasting and creating stimuli that does not exist to sustain a connection to the phone.”
That was a new perspective for me, a relationship that, as a matter of fact, my brain is working hard to defend. But indeed, my reality is my phone buzzing almost all day. I meet these phrases by checking my phone, and at random intervals, I get rewarded. Be it a stimulating message or an alert from a keen follower, even a notification from a social post. This was self-rewarding stimulation; like Operant Conditioning taken to an advanced level.
I was part of deep focus groups that spent countless hours perfecting cognitive notification schemes. The irony of this is not lost on me. Every facet was put under an A/B test to create compelling systems for reminding people. For every twelve hour shift, focused focus was applied to design the perfect combination of notification sounds, buzz duration, and visual bling-blems. Everything we engineered with surgical precision as bespoke to the consumer was uncaringly ripping into the basics of human brains and psychology.
I recall one design meeting vividly where, for some reason, we argued over whether to raise the default vibration settings on a new feature. “Users report missing vibrations,” a product manager stated whilst sharing a graph with engagement metrics. “We need something more attention-grabbing.”
“What if they’re not missing notifications?” I countered. “What if they are simply going about their lives?”
My question was met with a few raised eyebrows, and no one returned to my point as the discussion moved on to haptic feedback patterns. In retrospect, I perceive that as the first fracture of my tech industry mask, albeit it would take me years to unpick what pained me about that exchange.
When you deep dive into phantom vibrations, there’s something extraordinarily fascinating about them. For a majority of history, our senses were honed to pick up relevant stimuli like approaching predator, availability of food, weather changes, and even the expressions of other humans. Now, in an evolutionary instant, we have trained those ancient systems to detect the buzzing alert of an email as crucial as a rustle in the underbrush signaling a predator approaching.
It seems only yesterday that I was putting aside my son’s homework question simply because I thought I felt my phone vibrate. I told him to ‘hold on’ – to wait for a while which, ideally, should not have happened at all – while I verified a notification that was never meant to be. Disappointment flashed onto his face, but this time it was different. It was not only the fact that I had given precedence to a contraption over him; it was the fact that the contraption – more precisely, the technology had not even required my attention at that moment. What I had prioritized was the phantom of a device. Such technology had no value in that second.
Some researchers go as far as suggesting that anxiety might be the cause for phantom vibrations – the fact that the human brain pays so much attention to ideas regarding important messages, so much so that it breeds sensations that put a checkmark next to “need something” in terms of behavior. Others frame it as a type of bond dependency, arguing how attached we have become to our devices manifests.
There is certainly fundamental activity at play here. Our brains operate like finely tuned machines and redrawing maps with every encounter ensures they are constantly shifting. There is no doubt that we as people have drifted – some would even argue that we have been eager to – encourage these devices into the core of our identity to the point that they have merged on screen extensions of ourselves.
This morning, following the imaginary buzz at the coffee shop, I didn’t put my phone away immediately. I, by default, found myself going through my email first, then my Twitter, and after that my set of messaging apps. The phantom vibration had served its purpose not as some alert to an actual notification but as a trigger for the checking behavior itself. My brain had bypassed the middleman.
I am not suggesting that we all toss our phones into the sea (even though on some days, that thought is enticing). What I am suggesting is that phenomena like phantom vibration syndrome need more of our attention and concern. These issues are not just strange side effects of technology – they illustrate how deeply our devices change us on a neurological level.
Think about what’s going on inside your head – your brain is predicting, conjuring, expanding around the device resting in your pocket. In this case, the device in your pocket happens to be a smartphone.
As for now, I have adapted to using “do not disturb” mode more often, silencing even the vibrations in hopes that the imagined ones may fade away. This feels important, even if only a touch in a reality where our bodies and technology seem to be growing into an integrated one. One day, I prefer to think that reaching into my pocket will mean expecting nothing but simple cloth. As for now, I continue to sense lingering notifications, all attributed to the world I helped build.
