Phantom Vibration Syndrome

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Vibration module of a mobile phone ( unbalanced motor )

As a phantom vibration syndrome ( PVS ) is called the erroneous notion of owners of mobile phones that their vibrating device but do not wear selbiges with him or, vibrating alarm was not triggered. Since this is a perception with no detectable external stimulus , it is medically a hallucination . Phantom vibration syndrome appears to be widespread and common. According to several studies, the phantom vibration syndrome affects around 70 to almost 90% of all mobile phone owners. A PVS-like syndrome is the phantom ringing syndrome ( English phantom ringing syndrome ). The causes of both syndromes are still largely unclear.

Description and frequency

In the information age , cell phones are ubiquitous. In order to avoid disturbing other people present or in order to be able to hear incoming calls or messages in areas in which the acoustic ringtone could be overheard due to excessive noise, many cell phone users set their device to vibrate mode. Incoming messages or calls are displayed to the user in the form of a vibration alarm, which is essentially perceived using tactile means .

Studies and surveys have found that with a high rate of mobile phone users, frequent use of the vibration alarm can lead to false perceptions: They feel the mobile phone vibrates even if it is not vibrating. This feeling is known as phantom vibration syndrome . In a US study involving 74 doctors in internship ( medical interns ) the PVS was prevalence at the start of the internship at 78.1%. It rose to 95.9% during the internship. After twelve months, the end of the internship, it fell back to 80.8%, and two weeks after the end of the internship even to 50%. Similar data could be found in the same group of test persons for the prevalence of phantom bell syndrome. It rose from an initial 27.4% to a maximum of 87.7% and fell to 54.2% two weeks after the end of the internship. Using the Beck anxiety inventory and the Beck depression inventory, the authors of the study determined the anxiety and depression status of the subjects in parallel to the PVS and PKS prevalence . They could not find any correlation between anxiety and depression states of the test subjects and the PVS and PKS prevalence, which is why they assume that both syndromes develop independently of anxiety and depression. According to a study from 2010, PVS usually occurs after a time interval of one month to one year after starting to wear a cell phone on the body.

Over half the world's population has at least one cell phone. A large proportion of it puts it - at least temporarily - into vibration mode. According to the high prevalence determined in studies, a very high number of people are affected by the phantom vibration syndrome. Even if only a very small proportion of users develop more serious symptoms, this can definitely have an impact on the health system, especially since the long-term effects of PVS are still unknown.

The first scientific publication dealing with the topic was a dissertation from 2007. The author interviewed 320 adult cell phone users; two thirds of them said they had heard a phantom ringing before. In a 2012 study of 290 students who regularly carried cell phones with them, 89% reported phantom vibrations. 40% had experienced this within the last week. All other studies published to date (as of January 2016) were carried out exclusively on clinical staff. Around 2 to a maximum of 6% of all study participants found the phantom vibration syndrome to be very annoying ( very bothersome ).

causes

The exact physiological and psychological processes that can lead to a phantom vibration syndrome are still largely unclear. There are a number of theories that explain phantom vibration syndrome.

Some authors suggest that cell phones, especially smartphones , have become an ubiquitous part of the body for many users. Similar to worn glasses, a mobile phone in your pocket is no longer perceived as strange, but rather as part of your own body. Other stimuli that trigger muscle twitching or the friction of clothing on the surface of the skin can then be incorrectly assigned to the vibration alarm of the cell phone.

A possible cause of the phantom vibration syndrome is the misinterpretation of signals that reach the cerebral cortex (cortex cerebri). Filters and signal processing schemes are available in the human brain in order to be able to handle the multitude of different incoming signals . One of them is targeted choice (selective attention). In the case of phantom vibration syndrome, signals arriving in the brain in anticipation of a call or a message are misinterpreted as vibrations (= call / message). The actual stimulus is unknown and can be varied in nature. Possible stimuli can include touching clothing, muscle contractions, or other sensory stimuli.

Depending on the study, an American looks at his mobile phone between 46 and 150 times a day. A 2010 study commissioned by Nokia found that the average cell phone owner checks their phone every six minutes on average. This behavior is compulsive and bordering on obsession . Intensive users ( heavy users ) of mobile phones can develop intense anxiety when they can not verify their devices to messages or even completely lose access to their device. Phantom vibrations and ringing may be symptoms of these fears. In contrast, every message received releases dopamine in the recipient . A misdirected dopamine balance plays a key role in psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations. The release of dopamine under these anxiety states is possibly the biochemical cause of the phantom vibration or phantom bell syndrome.

treatment

Since the phantom vibration syndrome is perceived as very annoying by only a small percentage of those affected, treatment is usually not indicated. In a study published in November 2010, the phantom vibrations could be avoided with a 75% success rate by simply changing habits. Successful measures included avoiding the vibration alarm, switching to a different type of cell phone and changing the storage location.

Naming

Some authors consider the term phantom vibration syndrome to be misleading because no “phantom” is involved and it is actually not a syndrome. They justify the latter with the fact that only a small percentage of those affected describe the “syndrome” as “very disturbing”. The sensations could be better characterized as "tactile hallucination", but the word hallucination has too negative a connotation (hallucination = mental disorder), which does not match the low physiological severity and the very high degree of spread of the phenomenon. That is why the now established term phantom vibration syndrome is ultimately more appropriate.

The American Robert D. Jones coined the term phantom vibration syndrome in an article published in the New Pittsburgh Courier in December 2003 . In a Dilbert - comic strip of 16 September 1996 which tells the title character of his psychiatrist that he felt at the weekend, his pager (pager) would vibrate, but if he wants to retrieve the message he realize that he did not wear it . The psychiatrist tells him that this Phantom pager syndrome (a classic case phantom pager syndrome ) was, that would often auftrete among employees in the technology sector and not to deal with that. Dilbert replies that he doesn't want a treatment, he wants the vibration in the right place.

From the Australian Macquarie Dictionary was phantom vibration syndrome voted word of the year 2012th

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Robert Rosenberger: An experiential account of phantom vibration syndrome. In: Computers in Human Behavior. 52, 2015, p. 124, doi : 10.1016 / j.chb.2015.04.065 .
  2. ^ DW Baillie: Phantom vibration syndrome. Sixty eight per cent of us hallucinate. In: BMJ. Volume 342, 2011, p. D299, PMID 21248007 .
  3. ↑ a b Michelle Drouin, Daren H. Kaiser, Daniel A. Miller: Phantom vibrations among undergraduates: Prevalence and associated psychological characteristics. In: Computers in Human Behavior. 28, 2012, p. 1490, doi : 10.1016 / j.chb.2012.03.013 .
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i M. B. Rothberg, A. Arora u. a .: Phantom vibration syndrome among medical staff: a cross sectional survey. In: BMJ. Volume 341, 2010, p. C6914, PMID 21159761 .
  5. ↑ a b c Y. H. Lin, SH Lin et al. a .: Prevalent hallucinations during medical internships: phantom vibration and ringing syndromes. In: PloS one. Volume 8, number 6, 2013, p. E65152, doi : 10.1371 / journal.pone.0065152 , PMID 23762302 , PMC 3677878 (free full text).
  6. ^ Market Information and Statistics Division TDB, International Telecommunication Union. The world in 2009: ICT facts and figures. International Telecommunications Union, 2009.
  7. ^ D. Laramie: Emotional and behavioral aspects of mobile phone use. ( Memento of the original from May 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. PhD Thesis, Alliant International University (California), 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gradworks.umi.com
  8. ^ JW Pennebaker, JA Skelton: Selective monitoring of physical sensations. In: Journal of personality and social psychology. Volume 41, Number 2, August 1981, pp. 213-223, PMID 7277203 .
  9. ↑ Lisa Eadicicco: Americans Check Their Phones 8 trillion Times a Day. In: time.com. December 15, 2015, accessed January 13, 2016 .
  10. ↑ Joanna Stern: Cellphone Users Check Phones 150x / Day and Other Internet Fun Facts. (No longer available online.) In: abcnews.go.com. May 29, 2013, archived from the original on January 13, 2016 ; accessed on January 13, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / abcnews.go.com
  11. ↑ Ben Spencer: Mobile users can't leave their phone alone for six minutes and check it up to 150 times a day. In: dailymail.co.uk of February 11, 2013
  12. ↑ a b Sebastian Krawiec: Phantom Vibration Syndrome: Why We Should Put Our Phones Away. In: The digest online of December 19, 2013, accessed January 13, 2016
  13. ↑ Larry D. Rosen: iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming Its Hold on Us. Macmillan, 2012, ISBN 978-1-137-00036-1 , pp. 54–60 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  14. ^ A b c Atul Kumar Goyal: Studies on Phantom Vibration and Ringing Syndrome among Postgraduate Students. In: Indian Journal of Community Health. Volume 27, number 1, 2015, pp. 35-40. ( Open access )
  15. ↑ KC Berridge, TE Robinson: What is the role of dopamine in reward: hedonic impact, reward learning, or incentive salience? In: Brain research. Brain research reviews. Volume 28, Number 3, December 1998, pp. 309-369, PMID 9858756 (review).
  16. ↑ S. Kapur, R. Mizrahi, M. Li: From dopamine to salience to psychosis-linking biology, pharmacology and phenomenology of psychosis. In: Schizophrenia research. Volume 79, Number 1, November 2005, pp. 59-68, doi : 10.1016 / j.schres.2005.01.003 , PMID 16005191 (review).
  17. ^ Robert D. Jones: Phantom Vibration Syndrome. In: New Pittsburgh Courier , December 2003
  18. ^ Robert D. Jones: Phantom Vibration Syndrome - UPDATE , accessed January 13, 2016.
  19. ↑ Monday September 16, 1996 In: dilbert.com. Retrieved January 13, 2016
  20. ^ Aidon Wilson: Phantom vibration syndrome: Word of the Year. In: crikey.com.au of February 7, 2013
  21. ↑ Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year (select 2012 from the menu)