Have you ever experienced that phantom vibration feeling where you think your phone went off, but then you check it to find no new notifications? Well, Ivan Pavlov's famous theory known as classical conditioning can help explain this feeling and why it might be an indication of addictive behavior.
Classical Conditioning - And Connecting It Back To Hungry Dogs
Classical conditioning is a conditional learning method that combines two stimuli, a conditioned stimulus and a neutral stimulus, to create a new conditional response. The theory was famously formed after Pavlov’s dog experiment, where dogs were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell (neutral stimulus) that let them know it was time to eat. The stages of classical conditioning can be categorized into:
Stage 1: Before conditioning - The unconditioned stimulus produces an unconditioned response. In this case, the sight of food (unconditioned stimulus) causes the dog's mouth to salivate (unconditioned response) in preparation to consume the food.
Stage 2: During Conditioning - This stage is when the neutral stimulus (sound of bell) begins to make an association with the unconditioned stimulus (sight of food), which triggers a conditional response that is normally the same as the unconditioned response (salivating mouth). In Pavlov's experiment, he rang the bell right before the dogs' meal, so they began to make a connection between the two stimuli.
Stage 3: After Conditioning - Even without the unconditioned stimulus, the trigger of the neutral stimulus can now create a conditioned response. Whenever the dogs hear the bell, they begin to salivate because they think their meal is arriving.
The Phantom Vibration Syndrome
A phone chime, unlike the sight of food, is not a biological unconditioned stimulus, but it happens so frequently that it has been ingrained into our system to create a conditioned action in response. Since humans are social beings who find comfort in conversations, if a friend sent you a message wanting to chat, your natural response would be to go ahead and respond back. The process can be thought of like this:
Stage 1: Before conditioning - An opportunity to chat with a friend produces an unconditioned stimulus for a person to respond back. No neutral stimulus has been applied yet, but it is still presented within the phone.
Since it is not realistic for you to constantly look at your phone for new messages, the phone has a built-in notification system to notify you of any messages with a sound and/or vibration on. Most phones provide an array of different notification sounds suited to your taste, which can also help differentiate which notification sound is yours if it goes off in public. However, when you get a new phone, you need time to adjust to the notification sound, though most people become acquainted with it quickly since we hear it often.
Stage 2: During Conditioning - The neutral stimulus would be the notification sound, which now begins to make an association with any new pop up messages.
After a short while, you’ll become acquainted with the sound of your notification ring. At this point, any time you hear the notification sound go off, you know you are being updated with a new message. Some phones can allow you to set custom notifications for any person, so if you hear a more specific notification sound, you would be expecting it from only a particular person you assigned the neutral stimulus to.
Stage 3: After Conditioning - As soon as you hear the notification sound go off, you usually grab your phone to check the message you got. The neutral stimulus is now correlated with the conditioned response.
However, phantom vibration syndrome is a special case that occurs as a result of classical conditioning . When we hear a notification sound or vibration go off, we usually assume it’s our phones. However, there are cases when we check our phones only to see no new messages. To put in simple words, phantom vibration syndrome is the perception that one's phone is vibrating or ringing when it is not, which can otherwise be described as an illusion (we’ll get back to this specific point of “illusion”).
While it may not seem to be a problem, phantom vibration syndrome often demonstrates a much larger issue within an individual. This strange phenomenon is most common in people with high stress levels, as well as people who are more clingy and obsessive with technology.
According to a study found in a 2015 article by L. Rosen, this graph shows how each generation is affected by social media, and how obsessed they are with their phones.
(To clarify, IGeneration are people born in the 1990s, and the NetGeneration are people born in the 1980s).
(provided by "Phantom Pocket Vibration Syndrome" by L. Rosen, May 7th, 2013)
(provided by "Phantom Pocket Vibration Syndrome" by L. Rosen, May 7th, 2013)
The research group that had graphed these statistics also found that people who were more anxious if they did not check their phones often showed major symptoms of other mental illnesses such as depression, personality disorder or anxiety. The suspicion of an awaited text increases the flow of neurotransmitters such as dopamine and epinephrine (an increase of too much dopamine can cause mania and illusions) while decreasing the flow of serotonin and gamma-aminobutyric acid, which over time can cause mental health issues.
If we look back at the definition above, the phantom vibration syndrome is understood as an illusion, which can occur if the brain receives too much dopamine. It seems that the neutral stimulus of a notification sound/vibration does more than creating a conditional response, it can create a conditioned dependence on the phone. The phenomenon of phantom vibration syndrome shows how something harmless like the notification sound/vibration (neutral stimulus) that is controlled in classical conditioning can be not only bothersome, but also addictive for many people.
Classical conditioning is used not only in therapeutic interventions, but in everyday life as well, such as in advertising and marketing as a ploy to make individuals more hooked on products. It can be damaging to your overall well-being, so take a break from your phone and understand when you are feeling a bit too dependent on it.
By
Elina J
Works Cited:
Cherry, K. (2019, September 5). How Classical Conditioning Works: An Overview With
Examples. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-conditioning-2794859
Rosen, L. (2013, May 7). Phantom Pocket Vibration Syndrome. Retrieved from
pocket-vibration-syndrome
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