Mobile Users Suffering From 'Phantom Vibration Syndrome'

People who constantly check their mobile phone thinking it has vibrated, only to find that no one has called, are suffering from "Phantom vibration syndrome." The phenomenon is so common that it has been named the Macquarie Dictionary's Word of the Year, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Phantom vibration syndrome, or PVS for short, received the honor ahead of a host of other new technology-based terms.

The official definition of PVS is "a syndrome characterized by constant anxiety in relation to one's mobile phone and an obsessive conviction that the phone has vibrated in response to an incoming call when in fact it hasn't".

It was selected by the Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year Committee, ahead of technomites (technology adept young children), Crowdfunding (the obtaining of small donations from individuals contacted through social networks, as to fund a project) and First World problem (a problem that relates to the affluent lifestyle associated with the First World that would never arise in the poverty-stricken circumstances of the Third World).

Also shortlisted was the aboriginal word marngrook (a type of football played by Aboriginal people of south-eastern Australia before European settlement, which is thought to have had an influence on the formation of Australian football).

All the words have been selected for inclusion in the annual update of the Macquarie Dictionary Online.

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Source-ANI