Do You Experience FOMO When You Unplug?

Not really. I supposed I could be but mostly it is excitement for the release of a new video on Youtube or a new post of some value on Facebook or a comment on Facebook. I love looking at reels, Instagram pics, Facebook posts and Youtube videos. But I don’t think I have FOMO.

The idea that you might be missing out on a good time is not new to our era. Since the advent of social media, however, FOMO has become more obvious and has been studied more often. Social media has accelerated the FOMO phenomenon in several ways. It provides a situation in which you are comparing your regular life to the highlights of others’ lives. Therefore, your sense of “normal” becomes skewed and you seem to be doing worse than your peers. You might see detailed photos of your friends enjoying fun times without you, which is something that people may not have been so readily aware of in past generations.

What we need to realize is that Social media – smartphones and tablets in particular – are there to help us and enable our lives. Keeping in touch with things, events and people is an absolute positive thing but it can’t ruin our lives and give us anxiety. We have all gotten so used to these gadgets that we tend to miss it a lot during times that it is not with us. And unless I am sleeping I do want the phone near me so I get all messages and calls. This is hard to do without. I need my phone with me but I don’t need to use it all the time to check things or get upset that I am missing out.

Prompt from Over 1,000 Writing Prompts for Students at The New York Times Learning Network