What is phantom vibration syndrome, and how common is it?

You feel the buzz against your leg, reach for your phone, and there is nothing there. No message, no call, no notification. Most people who carry a phone have done this, and many have done it often enough to wonder whether something is a little wrong with them. So, what is phantom vibration syndrome, and how common is it? Very common, and almost always harmless.

What is phantom vibration syndrome?

It is feeling your phone vibrate when it has not. A 2010 study in the BMJ described phantom vibrations as a sensory hallucination sometimes experienced by people carrying pagers or mobile phones when the device is not vibrating.^[1] “Hallucination” sounds dramatic, but here it simply means a sensation without a real source, the tactile version of thinking you heard your name in a noisy room.

The caveat is in the word “syndrome”. It is a catchy label, not a diagnosis. A 2014 systematic review concluded that clinical criteria for identifying the condition still needed to be drawn up.^[5] There is a close cousin too: phantom ringing, hearing a ringtone that did not happen.

How common is phantom vibration syndrome?

Very common: in the two best-known studies, between two thirds and nearly nine in ten people had experienced it.

• 68% of medical staff. In the 2010 BMJ survey at a US academic medical centre, 115 of the 169 staff who answered the question (68%) said they had felt phantom vibrations. Most began between one month and one year after they started carrying the device, and 13% had them daily.^[1]
• 89% of undergraduates. A 2012 study of 290 undergraduates found that 89% had experienced phantom vibrations, about once every two weeks on average.^[2]
• Up to 96% of junior doctors in a hard year. A study following 74 medical interns found 78.1% had phantom vibrations before their internship, rising to 95.9% three months in, then falling to 50.0% two weeks after it ended.^[3]

The caveat: these are all particular groups (hospital staff, students, junior doctors) who carry devices constantly. They are not figures for the whole population, and they depend on people remembering and reporting a fleeting sensation.

Is phantom vibration syndrome real?

Yes, the experience is real; no, it is not a disease. The 2014 review found phantom vibrations were commonly experienced by mobile phone users, but that few people found them bothersome, and so few did anything about them. It also said the research was limited, with prevalence, causes, consequences and treatment all still to be studied properly.^[5]

The undergraduate study reached a similar conclusion: because few students were bothered or tried to stop them, the authors suggested interventions may be unnecessary for that group.^[2]

What causes phantom vibrations?

The honest answer is that nobody knows for certain, but studies have found some consistent links.

In the 2010 BMJ survey, four things were independently associated with phantom vibrations: being a junior doctor rather than a senior one, carrying the device in a breast pocket rather than on a belt, carrying it for more hours, and using vibrate mode more often.^[1] In the undergraduate study, people higher in conscientiousness had them less often, and people with strong emotional reactions to text messages were more bothered by them.^[2]

The interns study adds a clue about stress. Phantom vibrations became more common during a demanding internship year and fell back afterwards.^[3] The same researchers suggested these sensations might be considered a “normal” brain mechanism.^[4] A common way to explain that: if you are constantly expecting a buzz, your brain gets quicker to read any small sensation against your leg or chest as one. That explanation is plausible, but it has not been proven. If you want to understand the expectation itself, why phones are so addictive looks at how notifications train it.

Is phantom vibration syndrome dangerous?

There is no evidence that it is harmful in itself. Most people in the studies were not bothered by it.^[2][5] The picture on mental health is mixed. One analysis of the interns found that those with severe phantom vibrations had higher anxiety scores throughout their internship.^[4] Another analysis of the same group found no significant correlation between phantom vibrations and anxiety or depression symptoms.^[3]

This is general information, not medical advice. A false buzz from the pocket where your phone usually lives is a well-known quirk. If you are feeling tingling, buzzing or other sensations that are new, persistent or worrying, or that come with other symptoms, talk to your GP.

It is also not a sign of phone addiction on its own. Plenty of people who barely look at their phones still feel the occasional phantom buzz.

How do you stop phantom vibrations?

The only real data comes from the 2010 BMJ survey. Of the staff who had phantom vibrations, 39% managed to stop them. The strategies people used were:

1. Turning off vibrate mode (worked for 75% of those who tried it).
2. Carrying the device somewhere else (63%).
3. Using a different device (50%).

The differences between those success rates were not statistically significant, and 39% of people did not try anything at all.^[1] These were self-reports from one survey, not a tested treatment, so treat them as sensible experiments to try rather than a cure.

The gentlest version is simply fewer buzzes. Turn vibration off for everything except calls from people you love, and keep the phone in a bag or another room for part of the day. How to use your phone less has more ideas. If you want to see which apps are doing the most buzzing, The Anti-Algorithm Audit walks you through a quiet review of what your phone asks of you.