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Phantom cell phone vibrations? It could be all in your head
Friends since pre-school, Patrick Sharrow and Steve Sitek just learned they have something else in common. "I've never talked about it before," confides Sharrow. "I didn't know it existed really," adds Sitek. What both college students experience on a daily basis is something that's come to be known as phantom cell phone vibration. "It's always right in here," says Steve, pointing to his pants pocket. "The phantom," adds Patrick. "That's where he strikes." Paul Schrater Ph.D. of the University of Minnesota's Psychology and Computer Science Department says there's been no formal studies of the phenomenon, but he offers a pretty good theory for phones that seemingly vibrate in a pocket when no one is calling. "Perception is in the brain," he says. "Whatever comes into the brain is what we perceive." Schrater says cell phone users in essence train their brains to anticipate vibration from whatever part of the body they carry their phone. In time the brain starts to over-anticipate, picking up all sorts of cues. Which explains why many people feel the vibrations while walking, brushing against a counter or putting on a seatbelt in their car. "If you're in a situation where your pants are dragging against your skin you're creating signals that are stimulating these vibration sensors that are being carried into the brain," explains Schrater. "It's nice to find out I'm not the only one it's happened to," says U of M student Rebecca Huebner upon learning of reasons behind her own phantom vibrations. "More often than not it's when I'm expecting a call or a text message to be coming." In fact, it's a condition so common we met only one person in the preparation of this story who hadn't experienced it. "I hate phones," said Schrater, "and I don't use them so I've never had this happen to me."
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