Each and every one of us is extremely dependent on our phones, there is no denying that. We are just constantly glued to our phones and it’s hard to go through long periods of times without it. We are so attached to our phones that, at one point or another, we have all thought that they were vibrating or ringing but there was actually no call or notification.

This is called a phantom phone call or text. A survey of college students revealed that over 80% of them had experienced it. It has become a very common phenomenon, but if it’s happening way too often-like more than once a day-it could be a clear sign that you are psychologically dependent on your cellphone.

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There is still a debate going on whether excessive use of mobile phones or similar devices can be considered an addiction or not and phantom phone vibrations may help with that discussion.

Addiction is basically a condition where people seek comfort through certain thing, despite those things having negative consequences. Similarly, phantom vibrations suggest that people who experience it quite often may be just craving those calls and messages. 

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The survey, which was conducted on 750 undergraduate students, reflected that those who had a higher score for mobile phone dependency-be it using their phones to feel better and just getting irritated when they couldn’t use it-experienced phantom vibrations way more frequently.

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Phantom vibration is probably a very small and harmless problem, but it raises an important question about how much we actually rely on technology and how it basically has so much influence over our social life.  Do you experience phantom vibrations frequently?