ARIZONA
Annie Pan
Alvin Han
Albert Su
Rita Chen
Noela Bae
Mihir Hasan
Kathleen Yang
Sophie Lin
Annie Niu
Brandon Qin
Anurag Vedagiri
Catherine Hwu UC Riverside
Cindy Lu
Seo Hyun Park
Emily Leung Hansen Lillemark
Nick Chan
Jodi Wong
Shriya Reddy
Ian Tai
Shruti Ranade
James Jiao
Jason Dong
Austin Lei
Arizona State University
IN-DEPTH
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11
FOMO: Are you really missing out?
Shreyas Mohidekar
University of Arizona
CALIFORNIA
Azusa Pacific University Amy Nishijima
California Northstate University
Anna Qi
Garret Wang
Jojo Chen UC San Diego
Jeffrey Han
Michael Mao
Jennifer Yang
Justin Chan
Joshua Wong
Amanda Wang
Nishita Katere
Coby Chuang
Kavya Balaji
Kavitha Thirumaran
Mahima Sinha
Angela Zhao
Meghana Kumar
Nora Lam
Michelle Chen UC Santa Barbara
Krishnakumar Bhattaram
William Yi
Chloe Lee
Rahul Ravi
Leslie Pu
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Chapman University
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De Anza College
Christina Cui
Darren Chou
Ashley Gong
Roopak Phatak
Justine Chen
Jamie Chang
Qianjing Chen
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Atul Nair
Srinidhi Sesadhri
Shaunak Bhandarkar
Risa Mori
Paritosh Jha
Rohan Goel
Tanvee Joshi
Kiana Hatam
Sarah Isola
Varun Agrawal
Yiu-On Li
Christine Lee
Michelle Lum
Yuriko Akeyama
Zoe Ko UC Santa Cruz
Denver Yu
Rhea Kamath
Leslie Hwang
Angel Tseng
Arya Ranadive
Sadhana Sarma
Anjani Patibandla University of Southern California
Hatim Saifee
Caitlin Leong
Purdue University
Azra Ferhatovic INDIANA Jonathan Wu Indiana University
Shannelle Craig
Anav Chaudhry
Nicole Waring University of the Pacific
Selina Li
COLORADO
Samveda Pagay West Valley College
Sonakshi Khanna
Aayush Shah
ILLINOIS
MARYLAND
The role the Fear of Missing Out plays on adolescents
Eileen Yang
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY CLAIRE CHIU
BY KAVYA IYER & DIVYA NELAKONDA
PENNSYLVANIA
Carnegie Mellon University
Middlebury College Ananya Manjunath
Ronit Mathur
WASHINGTON
Surya Kalaimani
Emily Du
Rick Zhang
Hsinyen Huang
Rishika Gogineni
Emmaline Mai University of Puget Sound
Jessie Wong
Amanda White
Robyn Lee University of Washington
Meera Balaji
Serena Li
Michelle Zhou
Kelsey Lu
Jacob Lee
LYNBROOK CLASS OF 2019 COLLEGE MAP
NEW YORK
Cornell University
A
Erick Shimabuku
Wei-Han Chen
Stanley Wang
Estella Lin
Maxwell Wang Massachusetts Institute of Technology Columbia University
Kathryn Huang
Mehek Kapur
MICHIGAN
Rhea Chowdhury New York University
Ysabel Li
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Indali Bora
Shannon Ding
Anson Li American University
Dianna Shen
RHODE ISLAND
Margarita Sokolenko
Carrie An Georgetown University
Rhode Island School of Design
TEXAS
Aditya Venkatesh
OUT OF COUNTRY CANADA
University of Alberta
Divya Nelakonda
Som Naik
Alicia Wu
Mohini Adkar University of Pittsburg
NORTH CAROLINA
Duke University
Iryl Tan
Ariel Wang
VERMONT
Pranav Vasu
Riti Mital
Sakin Kirti
Mohana Venkatapuram
Shannon Liu Stony Brook University
Zayhaan Batlivala
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Pauline Lu
Nikash Walia
MINNESOTA
Carleton College
Keerthana Babu
Sinja Sanandan University of Michigan
Arjun Kaushik
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MISSOURI
Jeff Liu
Shannon Heh
Washington University in St. Louis
NEW JERSEY
Princeton University
Eesha Deepak St. Olaf College
Ishika Kamchetty
Arul Gnanasivam
Tania Godbole Johns Hopkins University
Daniel Jang University of Colorado Boulder
Justin Shin
Kuhu Mathur
Megan Yang University of Chicago
Meghna Kaligotla
Sean Wu
Dominican University of California
Foothill College
Harvey Mudd College
Pomona College Cynthia Li Emily Zhang UC Davis
San Diego State University
Anika Agharkar
Selena Jeong
Justin Choi
Jasmine Kuo
Andy Wang
Priya Ram
San Jose State University
Radence Tsow
Anuroop Thomas
Denver Tang
UC Irvine
Krish Govindasamy
Kulsoom Ahmad
Nicole Cheng
Arnav Gupta
Charlotte Zhang
Chloe Tat
Simran Nagshain
Santa Clara University
Scripps College Kerry Wong
Medha Gelli
Amol Singh UC Los Angeles
Daniel Huang
Cynthia Chang
Danielle Jung MASSACHUSETTS Dave Desouza-Lawrence Boston University
WISCONSIN Ashwin Pasupathy Isha Sharma Grace Tian Rice University Sandy Matsuda Arnav Amruth University of Wisconsin-Madison Joyce Ker Vennela Chukka OHIO University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign Case Western Reserve University Ben Shapiro Heather Kong Tanvi Narvekar NEW HAMPSHIRE Allison Lui Aditya Munshi Dartmouth College Alexander Chang University of Texas at Austin Annie Gao University of Maryland
Aishwarya Atmakuri
Anika Murthy
Patricia Wei
Abinaya Anbuchelvan
Arushi Gautam
Anusha Fatehpuria
Charles Huang
Abinaya Srikant
Andrew Ng
Aditi Raja
Stanford University
UC Berkeley
LYNBROOK HIGH SCHOOL | THE EPIC
photo of a friend on vacation, lounging on the beaches in Hawaii, and another zip lining through the tall trees in Costa Rica. A quick click of a group of friends having fun together, ordering food at a restaurant or just spending quality time at someone’s house. These simple things that show up on our social media feeds have become an integral part of daily life. However, they can invoke paranoia in others. This effect is widely known as the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). FOMO can be brought out by other underlying causes, such as anxiety or feelings of shame or inadequacy. For those who are more insecure about their social status as well as overall reputation, seeing pictures of their peers may deepen those negative emotions. They can feel ashamed about themselves, and often feel that they should be working harder to appear more amiable. All humans have the innate desire to belong and fit in, explaining why FOMO plays such a key role in how people behave throughout their daily lives. “Our feelings are not facts, but they can feel like facts,” said school psychologist Brittany Stevens. “Especially since humans are pack animals, the feeling of being left out can deeply affect many people.” With the proliferation of portable electronics and expansion of social media application usage, FOMO has become a growing problem. People who experience FOMO are likely to value their social media as an indicator of their social success through the number of likes, comments, and tags in others’ photos and followers they
have. FOMO has been found to cause more widely used by teens with FOMO. greater usage of social media, as people However, some of these applications find it to be a convenient access point to have also started experimenting with see what their peers are doing. features to lessen the effect of FOMO. “I know of teenagers and adults that Instagram is currently beta testing a have had to delete all their social media feature that would allow a user’s likes to accounts because their obsession with be viewed only by themselves. seeing what others were doing became “A lot of times during breaks when I unhealthy,” Stevens said. stay home, I see pictures through social In 2015, the most popular social media of my friends doing all these media platform was Facebook, followed cool things on vacation and I feel sort by Youtube, Twitter of jealous, or I wish and Instagram. The I could be doing growing popularity something more of Instagram has “Our feelings are not facts, but fun,” said sophomore been attributed they can feel like facts. Since Sahil Bhatia. to its efficacy in Some social c o m m u n i c a t i n g humans are pack animals, the media users have one’s ideal self- feeling of being left out can c o n s e q u e n t l y presentation developed internet deeply affect many people.” addiction as a result through pictures rather than words. Brittany Stevens of FOMO. Social The degree to School Psychologist media addiction is which FOMO affects characterized by an individual can excessive use, to predict the social the point of losing networking service they prefer. sense of time, withdrawal, resulting in Teenagers’ use of a variety of social feelings of anger, tension, fatigue and media platforms may provide relief for social isolation. Though social media the anxiety of being unaware of what use does not always escalate to the others are doing. A study by Saleem point of addiction, many users engage Alhabash, associate professor of Public in problematic social media use, such as Relations and Social Media at Michigan checking social media while eating out State University, surveyed college with company, while watching movies students on the intensity and motivation or even while driving, and this often behind their use of several social results in real-life consequences. Teens media platforms. While on Facebook, who feel FOMO are often found to have Instagram and Snapchat, a user’s online problematic social media use, yet using followers or friends overlap with their social media more with the intention offline affiliations. However, with of relieving FOMO related anxiety can platforms such as Twitter and Youtube, inadvertently trigger FOMO by bringing content has become viewable by larger to light the events the user is not audiences. As a result, more personal participating in. social networking services, such as “I do not think anybody posting these Instagram and Snapchat, tend to serve pictures has malicious intent,” Stevens as a greater relief for FOMO and are said. “In a way, they are also susceptible
to FOMO because many students feel the need to show others they are not being left out by posting on social media.” FOMO has also been known to affect the financial stability of individuals, particularly that of millennials. “FOMO spending” can occur when an individual caves to peer pressure to make purchases despite lacking the financial resources to support it, in fear of missing out on a social experience, losing friends, being judged or feeling like an outsider. On behalf of Credit Karma, Qualtrics conducted an online survey of 1,045 U.S. consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 during February and March 2018 and found that almost 40 percent of millennials have gone into debt for the sake of keeping up with their peers. Most often, the spendings proved worthless, as twothirds of the consumers experienced buyer’s remorse, the sense of regret after making a purchase when they had spent more than they intended in a social situation. FOMO spending can be difficult to avoid, since 27 percent of survey respondents felt uncomfortable declining a friend’s suggestion of a purchase or activity that they could not afford. FOMO, often referred to as a joke, is a phenomenon that can have serious consequences, whether it be to an individual’s self-esteem or their finances. It has been made even more prevalent due to the rising popularity of sharing the best aspects of life on social media. The weight of FOMO’s impact on people has been shown to be more than a joke, since it can deeply influence the way people view themselves and the image they project to others.