FOMO, Isabel De Bartolo

FOMO

Isabel De Bartolo

The term "FOMO" stands for "fear of missing out." Since it is so prevalent in our daily lives, I believe it's one of the most important and genuine issues that has to be addressed within our generation. FOMO is the inability to delete Instagram because you are afraid of losing access to all the amazing people and lives you engage with on social media. When you view a Snapchat story of all your friends having fun without you, you may feel excluded. You must leave the house on a Friday night in order to avoid missing the opportunity to create yet another inconsequential memory. It is considerably more difficult to leave once you've involved yourself in these apps and websites that give you a self-created persona. These social media platforms and applications have a way of taking over our lives and becoming the go-to activity when everyone in a group is bored and hunched over their glowing phone screens in silence. FOMO is the idea that other people are having more fun, living better lives, or having greater experiences than you are. It involves a deep sense of envy, and it had an impact on one's self-esteem. In a number of ways, social media has intensified the FOMO epidemic. It presents a scenario in which you are contrasting the good points of your life with those of others. Your perception of what is "normal" changes as a result, and you start to perform 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. Social media gave rise to a platform for gloating; objects, occasions, and occasionally even happiness itself seem to be up for competition. People are contrasting their most idealised experiences, which could make you feel deficient. Teenagers who suffer from FOMO may neglect their own honest perception of life in favour of focusing solely on the experiences and financial goods of their friends. This causes a

loss of identity, low self-esteem, and a persistent sense of restlessness and uneasiness. Young people and adolescents may be especially vulnerable to FOMO's impacts. Peer pressure from FOMO might influence teenagers to engage in risky behaviours that they might otherwise avoid. Adolescences may take such activities without thinking about the long-term effects because their brains are still developing. Teenagers can very easily base their entire life on what they see online. They continuously compare their own lives to these posts because they observe, judge, and approve of every online move that others do. References:

A teen explains how to deal with your Fomo. VICE. (2017, September 19). Retrieved November 7, 2022, from https://www.vice.com/en/article/qvj8g3/a-teen-explains-how-to-deal-withyour-fomo

Beyens, Ine, Eline Frison, and Steven Eggermont. “‘I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing’: Adolescents’ Fear of Missing Out and Its Relationship to Adolescents’ Social Needs, Facebook Use, and Facebook Related Stress.” Computers in human behavior 64 (2016): 1–8. Web.