FOMO (fear of missing out): noun, anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening somewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.
As a child who grew up in the 21st century, I'm lucky in many ways. I mean, I've had access to a computer all my life, with thousands of resources at my fingertips. I lived in a house with running water and had a car to get to where I needed to go. Well, my parents did. And I had the privilege of receiving a great education and medical attention when I needed it.
But something that comes along with these privileges and advancements is social media. It seems like every couple minutes my phone is buzzing with some sort of notification. It has made me, and the rest of my generation, so senselessly aware of what everyone is doing around us.
There comes expectations with these apps that we spend countless hours diving into. We are expected to post literally everything we do. If we don't, we must not be having fun, right? At least nothing fun enough to share with our 300 Snapchat friends. We feel this obligation to share the tiniest details to people who, honestly, couldn't care less. We're all just curious. And that right there is the problem.
Our curiosity has gotten the best of us. It has shown us things we would be better off not seeing. I can't tell you the amount of times I've checked my phone to see videos of a party I wasn't invited to. It's one thing to hear about something you weren't invited to, but another thing to have to watch it without warning. You would think we would learn not to check our Snapchats on Friday nights when we're comfortable in bed at 10 pm, but we don't. This cycle, along with the highlight reel everyone posts on Instagram and Facebook, makes it appear like everyone around us is living their best life.
Perpetual posts of our 'best moments' has led this generation to feel an incessant strain of FOMO. If we aren't doing something that lives up to what all our friends are posting, we might as well not be doing anything at all. We are so scared of missing out on something that might be going on that we become so unaware of ourselves. We are missing out on the now. We are missing the details of everyday.
I think it's time we all take a break. Take a technology cleanse. Delete your apps for a couple of days. Focus on what's in front of you, not what's behind a screen.
