No Evidence Backing Claim That 68 Of People Have Phantom Vibration Syndrome
The Claim
Some 68 percent of people are suffering from Phantom Vibration Syndrome, which occurs when people feel or think that their mobile phones are vibrating when they’re not.
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Emerging story
News outlets and social media accounts have recently shared an alleged news piece that 68 percent of people suffer from Phantom Vibration Syndrome.
Description: The screenshots capture the purported claim that was shared on social media platforms and other media outlets.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s team investigated the circulated claim and found that it was misleading. No scientific evidence supports the claim that 68 percent of people actually suffer from Phantom Vibration Syndrome. However, a number of researchers at the Bay State Medical Center indeed conducted a study titled “Phantom vibration syndrome among medical staff: a cross-sectional survey,” published in December 2010. The study results showed that 68 percent of participants from the medical staff had symptoms of the syndrome. However, these results were not generalized because they included only a specific population sample.
Zoologist at Kurukshetra University, Atul Kumar, also conducted a paper titled “Studies on Phantom Vibration and Ringing Syndrome among Postgraduate Students,” which was published in 2015 in the Indian Journal of Community Health. The study showed that 75% of graduates felt their phones vibrating even when switched off.
The claim has been circulating following a new study that was published under the title: “Phantom Phone Signal: why it should be of interest for psychiatry.” The study also used a survey whose participants are also medical staff.
According to a Georgia University of Technology professor and philosopher, the Independent, a U.K.-based newspaper, published on Jan. 10, 2016, a piece of news stating that 90 percent of people are suffering from this syndrome.
Translated by Ahmed N. A. Almassri
