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Robert RosenbergerRobert Rosenberger, assistant professor of Philosophy in the School of Public Policy, recently published a paper on the "phantom vibration syndrome" in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. The phantom phone vibration syndrome occurs when a person thinks his or her phone is ringing or vibrating from a text message when it actually is not. As a society increasingly dependent on mobile devices, the phantom vibrate easily becomes a phenomenon of worry for users.
Those among the worriers fear that the dependency on technology involves rewiring the brain and altering human behavior. Rosenberger says otherwise.
“There are ways to talk about technology without reducing everything to brain rewiring talk,” he tells me over the phone. “Yes, you’re brain’s involved, but your brain’s involved in everything. There's a weird scientific legitimacy that comes from saying it's changing your brain, as opposed to just claiming it’s changing your behaviour or society. If I'm teaching you to drive, we wouldn't talk about brains. I would just say, OK, take hold of the steering wheel. ”
He concludes that the tendency to check phones arises from basic human nature to obsess. For instance, constantly checking the driveway to see if a guest has a arrived or a commuter straining to hear the arrival of a subway.
Robert Rosenberger received his PhD in philosophy from Stony Brook University. His research in the philosophy of technology explores the habitual relationships people develop with everyday devices such as cell phones and television, with applications in design and policy
