Your phone vibrates in your pocket. Quickly, you grab it to find out who texted you. But surprise, no sign of a message on the screen. It is not your cell phone that is malfunctioning, but rather your brain that makes you feel a vibration that does not exist.
Researchers call it a “ghost communication experience,” which can also occur when you think you are receiving a call or notification. Scientists at the Michigan Institute for Social Research found that these experiences occurred more in people addicted to their phones. How to explain this phenomenon ? For Daniel Kruger, lead author, “when people have an addiction, they are hypersensitive to stimuli associated with a reward”. Here, it is about receiving a message, a news or a call.
Ghost notifications, proof of a real addiction?
In their study published in Computer in Human Behavior, the scientists recruited 766 male and female participants. They responded to an inventory on their personality taking into account five dimensions: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, pleasantness and emotional stability. The researchers then asked them if they had ever experienced phantom communication phenomena and how often. To determine their cell phone use, the volunteers also indicated why they used their cell phone (for example “feeling good” or “talking to others when I am isolated”), and if they felt anxious when they were pressured to do so. ” turn off their device.
The analysis showed that conscientious and emotionally stable people were less prone to ghost communication experiences. For the researchers, all these elements together plead for considering the addiction to the cell phone as a “real” addiction. According to them, it should be included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM, the bible of psychologists and psychiatrists. This book classifies all psychiatric illnesses and psychological disorders and serves as an international reference in their management. A first attempt to recognize this addiction as a disease failed in 2013, but this work could tip the scales in the other direction.
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