As serendipity often strikes randomly, I was reading an article in The New York Times by Jenna Wortham the other day at the same time I was reading the chapter in Sherry Turkle’s new book, Alone Together about people who fear they are missing out.
Teens and adults text while driving, because the possibility of a social connection is more important than their own lives (and the lives of others). They interrupt one call to take another, even when they don’t know who’s on the other line (but to be honest, we’ve been doing this for years before caller ID). They check their Twitter stream while on a date, because something more interesting or entertaining just might be happening.
It’s not “interruption,” it’s connection. But wait a minute… it’s not really “connection” either. It’s the potential for simply a different connection. It may be better, it may be worse — we just don’t know until we check.
We are so connected with one another through our Twitter streams and Foursquare check-ins, through our Facebook and LinkedIn updates, that we can’t just be alone anymore. The fear of missing out (FOMO) — on something more fun, on a social date that might just happen on the spur of the moment — is so intense, even when we’ve decided to disconnect, we still connect just once more, just to make sure.
Like the old-school Crackberry addict, we’re now all in the grip of “FOMO addiction” * — the fear of missing out on something or someone more interesting, exciting or better than what we’re currently doing.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines. The comments below begin with the oldest comments first. Click on the last comments page to jump to the most recent comments.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines.
Post a Comment:
Copyright © 1995-2013 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 20 May 2013
|
Love this post. I hope that even kids will get tired of divided attention and start regulating their technology use. We’re all giddy right now. I am only just realizing–in a profound way–how peaceful it is to pay attention to only one thing at a time sometimes. I realize we get worse at multitasking as we age, but it’s even more than that. It’s like stepping away from a chattering cocktail party to a quiet room. I’m still wired more often than not, but I’m striving for balance.
(If these companies really wanted to take their efforts to the next stage, they should consider hiring some psychologists!)
That’s a great idea.
FB has an “in-house sociologist,” guy named Cameron Marlow, who has a Ph.D. from MIT in “media cognition and weblogs.” His research appears to be less about how Facebook affects social interactions in the real world than about how we use Facebook and correlations between our Facebook use and who we are.
Hello,
I had read an article about FOMO many years ago. The term was coined by Dr Dan Herman. He is talking about it from a marketer’s point of vew. Very interesting stuff.
Quite a useful set of observations. What this article is hinting at, but not making explicit is the affect of social networking and texting technology on the development of emotional and social intelligence. A whole generation has grown up thinking it’s normal to not be particularly present during a face to face conversation. This is a form of being made socially stupider by the new technologies (in the service, of course, of the companies that promote it)…all the while thinking that somehow you’re actually more connected. When it comes to humanity and stupidity, you can’t keep up.
i completely agree with you! far too many times i’ve attempted to have a conversation with someone whose eyes are simply glued to their phone, and they just cannot focus on what’s happening right in front of their face. this “FOMO” makes people so afraid of what they COULD be missing that they pay no attention to what they actually ARE missing- their actual life.
cell phones are practically breeding teenagers to ignore what’s right in front of their face, and they’re becoming more and more uncomfortable with human interaction and more accustomed to conversing digitally, impersonally, so much so that when they do have human interaction it’s either interrupted constantly with pauses to read and respond to a text, or just so awkward that it’s avoided in general, at all costs.
now don’t get me wrong, not all teenagers/cell phone users are dysfunctional… i’m simply speaking of the more severe cases of “FOMO”.
Funny thing is that I had to post this to facebook.
Facebook in it’s self is far from being social.
Social means meeting people and getting to know them, facebook however is finding people you know and sharing funny things with them and excluding people you do not know.
As someone who teaches business etiquette this is an increasing problem in the workplace. When employees feel the need to constantly check-in, they send the message that what “just came in is more important than our conversation right now.”I agree that we should not be so addicted to staying connected 24/7.
I think the problem of the book Alone Together is that it mistakes a symptom for the cause. People’s real world social relationships aren’t suffering from too much social media. Rather, the whole reason social media thrives in the first place is because our real world social relationships are suffering and have been for a while now.
I’m a teenager myself (15 yrs old) and I found this really interesting. Even though I don’t have a smartphone, I do often have the FOMO when for example I’m on my laptop surfing the web. And sometimes I actually feel like I’m missing out, BECAUSE I don’t have a smartphone. Anyway, some food for thought.
FOMO is only part of it, I think. Most of it is a lack of good boundaries and/or poor self-confidence. If someone is otherwise engaged in something interesting & worthwhile, and has the strengh to stay focused on that activity or person, other things/people can and ought to wait for a more appropriate time to get attention. If one plans his/her time and priorities well and has the willpower to stick to it, checking person email can wait until one’s lunch break, for example. A lot of it depends where one is in life. Is one in the working world? Use of smartphones for personal matters has to wait, or you’ll perform poorly / maybe lose your job. If communicating with loved ones and/or friends is how one chooses to enjoy his “free” time, so be it! I know some people who are on Facebook daily, while I’ve noticed most of us are on occassionally. There are different levels of “coolness,” depending on your age, circumstances. It might be cool for a teen to be on Facebook 10 times daily vs. a 48 year old adult with a good job? Maybe weekly or less. For the adult with the cool job, too much Facebook time might mean they’re lonely and not otherwise engaged in interesting activities or with interesting people. Or maybe someone is doing those things but feels the need to share that with his/her FB friends. Too much? Insecurity. Anyway, so many factors are involved. Technology and its use is a highly personal matter. Enjoy! I say, use it to your advantage and enjoyment! Try to help others! But that’s just my opinion. What’s yours?