Bad vibrations? Cell phone dependency predicts phantom communication experiences

Abstract

Phantom cell phone experiences are instances when mobile cell phone users perceive ringing, vibrations, and/or visual stimuli indicating an incoming call or message, yet no call or message actually registers on the phone. As a human signal-detection issue, these experiences may be influenced by psychological factors. We hypothesize that phantom cell phone experiences are a symptom of psychological dependency on cell phone communications and the resulting hypersensitivity to stimuli in the same class as cell phone notification methods. We find support for this hypothesis with path model analyzing responses from a large undergraduate sample. Self-reported symptoms of cell phone dependency strongly predicted the frequency of phantom cell phone experiences and mediated the relationships between personality factors, age, and participant sex with the frequency of phantom cell phone experiences. Women, younger individuals, and those with lower conscientiousness and emotional stability (i.e. higher neuroticism) had higher symptoms of cell phone dependency.