By Lauren Felechner
Daily Titan Staff Writer

“Phantom vibration syndrome” is just another result of the technological age taking over.

This new syndrome, which can also be referred to as “vibranxiety,” is “the feeling when you answer your vibrating cell phone, only to find it never vibrated at all,” according to USAToday.com.

Luise Case, 22, a communications major, claims this syndrome “consumes” her.

“It sucks! My phone causes way too much anxiety. If I can’t find my phone in my purse, I start freaking out, and then if it’s next to me, I feel it going off when it’s not,” Case said.

Blogs have been formed online by those who “suffer” from this syndrome, USAToday.com states.

“Experts say the false alarms simply demonstrate how easily habits are formed,” further states the Web site.

Much like Case, who is constantly reaching for her phone, Daniel James, 19, an art major, reacts similarly.

“I think my case might be a little more unusual as my phone vibrates erratically when I receive a text, so I am pretty much just imagining crazy-vibration patterns,” James said.

Although he has never heard of the term made for this reaction, James found it somewhat pathetic.

“I am not really a talker, so I am constantly text-messaging. And I am sure I am not the only one. So the fact people are so dependent on their phones that they get anxiety over it is … lame,” James said, “so I guess I am super lame.”

Psychology major Farrah Heravi, 22, applies what she has learned in her psychological studies to the way the syndrome affects her.

“I think it’s just a form of wishful thinking,” Heravi said. “Most of the time this happens to me is when I am waiting on a call back or I am in some form of a time crunch for information. My phone ringing seems to be the only thing I am thinking about at the time, so I keep tripping myself out thinking I feel or hear it.”

If Case has friends in the car with her when her phone pulls a disappearing act, she will make them call her cell phone until she finds it, Case said.

Child development major Kirstin Williams, 19, finds her trigger to be when she is interested in a guy.

“If I am expecting or wanting a guy to call or text me, I always feel my phone vibrating when it’s not. And then half the time I miss the actual call because I am over being tricked by my phone,” Williams said.

Although the situation may be humorous to some like Williams, others don’t see the humor, such as Case.

“I already suffer from panic attacks, so if something as minuscule as my cell phone can set off an attack, you could only imagine otherwise,” Case said.

Neuroplasticity, which is “the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to changes in the environment,” according to USAToday.com, can be another explanation for the phantom vibration syndrome.

“When cell phone users regularly experience sensations, such as vibrating, their brains become wired to those sensations,” states USAToday.com.

James understood Williams’ case of expecting phone calls and imagining vibrations. Although it may not necessarily have to do with relationships or persons of interest, any phone call or text he is waiting on makes his syndrome appear a little stronger, James said.

“It makes one wonder how this term got coined, and who coined it? Who heard of so many people complaining of this that it became a ‘syndrome’?” Case said.