“A Syndrome Characterized By Constant Anxiety In Relation To One’s Mobile Phone”

The choice for the best word of 2012 from the committee at the Australian dictionary, the Macquarie:

phantom vibration syndrome

noun a syndrome characterised by constant anxiety in relation to one’s mobile phone and an obsessional conviction that the phone has vibrated in response to an incoming call when in fact it hasn’t.

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And the people’s choice:

First World problem

noun a problem that relates to the affluent lifestyle associated with the First World, and that would never arise in the poverty-stricken circumstances of the Third World, as having to settle for plunger coffee when one’s espresso machine is not functioning.