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When I first started carrying a BlackBerry years ago, I had a colleague warn me about "phantom vibrations" - swearing your phone was vibrating when it wasn't, "feeling" it vibrate when it wasn't even in the holster, etc. I thought my colleague was nuts - and then darn it if I didn't have the experience myself. I would imagine the same malady would affect those with iPhones set on vibrate all the time as well.

These phantom vibrations have kept up over the years and fast forward to yesterday when I was officially celebrating my second day of CHL ownership by concealed grocery shopping. I had the BlackBerry on one side, XD on the other.
Darn it if the XD isn't in cahoots with the BlackBerry and picked up on the "phantom vibrations". Now I am patting down both sides of my waist to see whether the phone is ringing or have an incoming message!

Anyone else experience this or am I the only crazy one in the bunch??

"Strange Vibrations", wasn't that a song by the Beach Boys some years back?

Oldgringo wrote:"Strange Vibrations", wasn't that a song by the Beach Boys some years back?

I think your thinking of the song "good vibrations", close though. oh and, ES4me, yes you're the only crazy one in the bunch.

I've had that happen with my phone a lot until I stopped leaving it on vibrate all the time. While that's stopped, now whenever it rings I don't realize it's my phone because I left the ringer off for so long.

Oldgringo wrote:"Strange Vibrations", wasn't that a song by the Beach Boys some years back?

hahaha - well, I nearly titled my post "Good Vibrations" but I figured I would never live that one down.

When I was a kid my dad had this aqua blue 1964 Rambler. With him still being quite young himself and handy with anything, he souped up the speaker system. I can remember sitting in the back of that car and the back seat just jumping in time with the bass the last few seconds of that song. I think I was about 3 at the time and used to just wait for that song to come on because I thought it was great fun.

I have had the same experience, and when I saw my chiropractor about it, he had never experienced it. The next time I saw him he told me I had cursed him, as it now happened to him all the time.

If you leave the Blackberry in vibrate mode long enough, you will start getting phantom vibrations even when you aren't wearing it. I had them for about 9 months after I stopped carrying a Blackberry and started using a pocket-able phone instead.

In a bit of a disconcerting study, many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations when there are none, or feeling as if they're wearing a cell phone when they're not. The first time it happened to Jonathan Zaback, a manager at the public relations company Burson-Marsteller, he was out with friends and showing off his new BlackBerry Curve. "While they were looking at it, I felt this vibration on my side. I reached down to grab it and realized there was no BlackBerry there." Some users compare the feeling to a phantom limb, which Merriam-Webster's medical dictionary defines as "an often painful sensation of the presence of a limb that has been amputated." Although research in the area is scant, theories abound about the phenomenon, which has been termed "ringxiety" or "fauxcellarm."

Anecdotal evidence suggests "people feel the phone is part of them" and "they're not whole" without their phones, since the phones connect them to the world, said B.J. Fogg, director of research and design at Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab. "As human beings, we're so tapped into our community, responsiveness to what's going on, we're so attuned to the threat of isolation and rejection, we'd rather make a mistake than miss a call. Our brain is going to be scanning and scanning and scanning to see if we have to respond socially to someone."


Opinion on these phantom vibrations is split. Some, such as Fred Wilson, a managing partner of Union Square Ventures, consider them a point of pride. "Of course I get them," he said. "I've been getting them for over 10 years since I started with the pager-style BlackBerry." On the other side of the spectrum are users like Jeff Posner, president and owner of e-ventsreg.com in New Jersey. He stopped wearing his BlackBerry on his belt because of regular false alarms. And then there is the paranormal, with some users, such as Jake Ward, a former press secretary for Sen. Olympia Snowe and current director of Qorvis Communications Inc., claiming to "pre-feel" a new message or call. "I'll feel it, look at it. It's not vibrating. Then it starts vibrating," he said. "I am one with my BlackBerry."

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/07/10/1 ... vibrations" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interestingly, with my old phone I would get 90% of my phantom vibrations only seconds before my phone would actually vibrate. Maybe I'm super-sensitive to electronics and radiation



I hope I can still have kids...

I'm a Blackberry user and have never noticed any strange or phantom vibrations - let alone any good vibrations! But, I should add, I never set my device to vibrate so my Blackberry doesn't have any "experience" in that regard.

Do-Da-Do-Da-Do-Da - - - - - - - - - - - You are entering the Twilight Zone

Do you have to have a cell phone or a Blackberry to experience Strange Vibrations?

Oldgringo wrote:Do you have to have a cell phone or a Blackberry to experience Strange Vibrations?

Is there something we should know ?

USA1 wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:Do you have to have a cell phone or a Blackberry to experience Strange Vibrations?

Is there something we should know ?

I asked first. Why, you got 'em too?

Oldgringo wrote:

USA1 wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:Do you have to have a cell phone or a Blackberry to experience Strange Vibrations?

Is there something we should know ?

I asked first. Why, you got 'em too?

No comment.