People imagine 'phantom vibrations' from their phones

Can I borrow a feeling?

While junk emails, chain text messages, overdue bill reminders and consistent pings would be enough to send most phone users over the edge, new research shows it's the absence of these things that causes the most damage.

A study from the University of Worcester shows smartphone users get hallucinations, stress and obsessions from their mobile, imagining phantom vibrations when they don't receive any activity such as calls or texts.

Stress was directly linked to the number of times users checked their silent phone as opposed to their line of work.

The study showed that the devices were originally bought for work purposes but were mostly used for socialising, which resulted in users becoming upset or angry when they hadn't received communication from Facebook, Twitter or email.

Richard Balding, study author, said: "So many people have smartphones now that the effect they are having on their lives and the amount of time they are spending on them is, to be honest, quite scary. The amount smartphones are being used is going up and up with the introduction of new apps.