Science Project

7/17/2019 Science Project

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How technology is affecting us; through Phantom

Vibration Syndrome and Phantom Text SyndromeBy: Amaya Holliday, Carter McQuinn, Lucius Anthony

Abstract:

In our lab report we studied Phantom Text Syndrome and Phantom Vibration

Syndrome at our school. We were motivated to learn about it because one of the group

members had it and as we talked more about it more and more people came forward

that they had it too. The question we ended up experimenting was what percentage of

Animas students experience either phantom vibration syndrome or phantom text

syndrome? Why do we think this occurs? Our results were that 54% of students have

PTS and 74% of students have PVS. We also asked how often they get it and 43% of

kids get PVS once a week and 38% of kids get PTS a week. From our data we could

conclude that PVS is more common and happens more frequently than PTS.

Introduction:

Our group is doing this project to learn about Phantom Vibration Syndrome and

how common it is at Animas. Phantom Vibration Syndrome is when you you here a text

tone or text vibration when you didn’t receive a text. We were inspired to learn about

this because our generation is obsessed with technology, specifically our phones. We

wanted to learn how technology is affecting us. Phantom text syndrome is when you

hear a text tone but receive no text. Phantom Vibration Syndrome is when you feel a

vibration from a phone but don’t get a text. According to Mentalhealthdaily.com “

the

brain becomes so conditioned to hearing frequent rings or vibrations, that the same

neural pathways activated when it actually is ringing falsely burst with activity even

when it isn’t.” These syndrome are becoming more and more common with the growing

use of phones. In one study done by Dr. Michelle Drouin, of Purdue University, 89% of

test subjects had this.

Question and Hypothesis:

What percentage of Animas students experience either phantom vibration

syndrome or phantom text syndrome? Why do we think it occurs?

If out of 100 people nowadays 96 have cell phones then we think that 90% of

kids will have Phantom Vibration Syndrome because most kids use their phones so

much that they are starting to get PVS. We think this occurs because when you hear



your phone go off you feel needed so your brain is trying to overcompensate when your

phone isn’t going off.

Methods and Materials:

We will send out a survey to 50 random students and teachers at Animas askinghow many of them experience phantom text/ vibration syndrome. We will also ask

where they keep their phone during the day and how often these phenomenon occur.

Then we will form a conclusion based on these results. The other factors that will affect

our projects is where people experience the vibration, like in their pocket or purse. We

will collect data on if people have PTS/PVS and also where and when they experience

PVS. Our method will be to make a survey to ask 50 random students and teachers if

they experience phantom vibration syndrome or Phantom Text Syndrome. Then we will

find the percentage of students/teachers who have PTS/PVS and students/teacher who

don’t. Lastly, we will make an infographic with our data.

Results: A trend we found with our data was where people keep their phones that is

usually where they are most likely to experience PVS.

Phantom Text Syndrome

54% of students at Animas have Phantom Text Syndrome

10% of students get it once a day

46% of students never get PTS

38% of students get it once a week

6% of students get it 2-5 times a day

Phantom Vibration Syndrome

74% of students get PVS

18.8% of students get it once a day

43.8% of students get it once a week

22.9% of students never get it

14.6% of students get it 2-5 times a day

Where people feel Phantom Vibration Syndrome

69.6% of students feel it in their pockets

6.5% of students feel it in their purses 2.2% of students feel it on their beds

2.2% of students feel it in their shoes

17.5% of students answered N/A

Where students keep their phones

70.2% of students keep their phone in their pockets

6.4% of students keep their phones in their hands



12.8% of students keep their phones in their backpacks/purses

4.2% of students keep their phones nearby

4.3% of students don’t have a phone

2.1% of students keep their phones in their hats



Discussion:

Our results state that 54% of students at Animas have Phantom Text Syndrome

and 74% have Phantom Vibration Syndrome. One observation we made from these

results is that 70.2% of students/faculty carry their phones in their pockets while 69.6%

of kids feel PVS in their pockets. Based on other results we can come to the conclusion

that you will most likely get PVS where you keep your phone on you the most. Our

question and hypothesis asked what percentage of Animas students experience either

Phantom Vibration Syndrome or Phantom text Syndrome? Why do we think it occurs? If

out of 100 people nowadays 96 have cell phones then we think that 90% of kids will

have Phantom Vibration Syndrome and Phantom Test Syndrome because most kids

use their phones so much that they are starting to get PVS and PTS. We think this

occurs because when you hear your phone go off you feel needed so your brain istrying to overcompensate when your phone isn’t going off. Our hypothesis was

incorrect only 54% of students had PTS and 74% had PVS. The importance of our

result show how technology is really affecting us in a negative way. From our data we

could also conclude that PVS is more common and happens more frequently than PTS.

We did this experiment because some of our group members had PVS/PTS, so we

wanted to understand it more. Additionally, it ties into the theme of how technology is

affecting us.

Some other important data we found was that 70.2% of students at Animas keep

their phones in their pocket despite the rule that phones should be off and in your

backpack. Also, 6.4% of students carry their phones in their hands. Oddly enough, 2.2%of students feel the phantom vibration in their shoe.

We are very confident in our results because we followed a strict controlled

procedure. For example we wanted to find a random set of test subjects

(students/faculty at AHS) so we decided the best way to find random people was for my

group to say the first random 50 kids that they could think of to send out our survey to.

While working on this project I think the biggest improvement we could have made was

our survey. We should have asked a question about how their mood is when they

receive either PVS or PTS to see if they are only having this phenomenon to try and

release more dopamine to improve the test subjects mood. Furthermore, we should

have had a better understanding of the technology that we were using. We had some

trouble with google forms.

Bibliography:

"Phantom Pocket Vibration Syndrome." Psychology Today . Psychology Today, 2015.

Web. 06 Oct. 2015.



"What Is Phantom Vibration Syndrome?" What Is Phantom Vibration Syndrome? Mental

Health Daily, n.d. Web. 06 Oct. 2015.

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