One of my favorite illustrations of the physical nature of our relationship with smartphones, and of the ways that relationship can go awry, is the phenomenon of phantom cell-phone vibration, the feeling that one’s cell phone or pager is buzzing when it’s not.

It sounds weird, but it’s also very common. A survey of medical workers at a Boston-area hospital revealed that two-thirds of respondents had experienced phantom cell-phone vibrations (or “ringxiety,” as psychologist David Laramie calls it). People who regularly carry their cell phones in shirt or pants pockets, near the nerve-rich areas of the breast or upper thigh, are most susceptible. So are people who already feel anxious about mising a call. In the Boston hospital, interns, residents and staff were much more likely than senior faculty to feel phantom cell-phone vibrations because, one senior physician explained, “all hell breaks loose” if the students don’t answer their phones; senior staff are less tethered to theirs.

There are a few professions in which you get lots of unpredictable calls, you can’t tell in advance which callers are really urgent, and so you can’t screen yourself from them; but most of us have lives that are more predictable. Personally, I usually set my phone down on my desk in the office, and rather than have it buzz when it wants to alert me to something, I have the camera flash go off.

Didn’t know you could do that? It’s not that well-known.

 

To find the control for flashing, go to Settings. Scroll down to General; in General, you’ll see Accessibility.

This takes you to a page full of features to make the iPhone more usable if you have impaired vision, your hands are a bit shaky, the print or icons are too small for you, or you use a hearing aid.

Scroll down the page, and you’ll come to LED Flash for Alerts.

If you toggle it on, the flash will now go off when you have an incoming call or text, calendar alert, or email from someone on your VIP list.

What I like about the flash is that it’s noticeable, but it’s less of an interruption or irritation that the bzzz… bzzzz… bzzzz of a vibration. I certainly catch the fact that my phone wants to tell me that something’s going on, but it’s easier to choose to answer, rather than just react.