FOMO in your Digital LIFE

Digital media are all around us, constantly moving, turning and changing and for most of us an essential part of not only our digital, but also our real human lives. The most notable tool that allows us access to these digital media is, obviously, the smartphone. For most people the day starts with a checkup on their phone, checking what messages they have received, reading some news articles, consuming entertainment or wandering through the many digital streets of the online world. For most people, the rest of their day is also filled with checking their phone, ends with checking their phone before bed, where sleeping offers a temporary break from all this phone-checking. Lots of phone checking: the smartphone is very important for almost everyone in the world.

is this a bad thing?

yes. but also no.

More and more people are addicted to their phones, spending hours and hours glued to their screen, which they could also be spending with their friends, doing work, making art, dancing, jumping, eating or anything else that does not involve their screens. Addiction to your phone means you are slowly losing your grip on your real human life, slowly slipping away and falling into the dark abyss of digital media. Simultaneously, phones offer a way to contact your friends and family that may not live close, it grants you access to media from all over the world, in the form of videos, music, art etc. Phones can make you feel connected with your environment or the rest of the world, but also lead to:

FOMO

(anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media.)

Mostly because of social media, we are constantly exposed to WHAT people we know are doing, WHERE they are doing things and with WHO they are doing these things. Especially for younger teenagers, this leads to a strong sense of missing out on whatever their friends might be doing, creating anxiety. This means that teenagers are constantly on their phones, trying to see what is going on, in fear of missing out on whatever is happening. Digital platforms also fully support this feeling, being designed to raise your screen time and interaction with their platform. Notifications and pop-ups constantly remind you of what is happening, and have proven to be very effective for young people, whose brains are very vulnerable to external influences like these. All of this in a very important time of their lives where they are discovering themselves and going through many different emotions, leading to constantly being online so that you won’t miss a thing.

SOOOOOOO

While phones offer connection to people from all over the world, media, entertainment and other fun stuff, it also divides by always making you fearful of missing out on what other people are doing. In some cases this leads to extreme addiction, which makes you miss out on all the fun stuff in your real human life. In the perfect situation we find the right balance between our digital and human lives, but for most this balance is an unreachable dream, and definitely not something this little blog post can help you with. Nonetheless, I hope whoever is reading this has a wonderful day and I will see you in the next blog post. Comment your favorite things to do in your digital life and in your human life : ( )

farewell

source: https://neuronup.us/psychology/fomo-fear-of-missing-out-on-the-digital-age/