IT IS a familiar and unnerving sensation, the false belief that you can hear your mobile phone ringing or vibrating.
Now the phenomenon is so widespread it has an official name "ringxiety".
People have grown emotionally dependent on their mobiles for feelings of self-worth, claim psychologists.
Researchers say that when people hear a phone with a similar ringtone to theirs, "they get anxious and distressed when they realise the call isn't for them".
Ringxiety is defined as the "false belief that you can hear your mobile phone ringing".
The term was coined by David Laramie, from California's School of Professional Psychology, himself a sufferer.
On hearing notes similar to his phone's ring, "my brain would fill in the rest", David Laramie said
British psychologists say it is a sign the human brain is struggling to adapt to today's demands.
Professor Michael Hulme, of the Lancaster Centre for the Study of Media, Technology and Culture, said the condition affects tens of thousands of mobile phone users in the UK.
Professor Michael Hulme said, "You want to feel you are being contacted even when you are not."
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