To protect you against the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO), the use of smartphones in 2017 is no longer permitted in certain locations. Compare it with the cigarette. That would be what?
FOMO is a worrying phenomenon. It is an addiction that is driven by new technology and social media. More and more people get it through to the children through their friends during a meeting or in a restaurant. The word has since 2013 even in the English dictionary.
Scrolling through your timeline you always come back new messages that you did not know, and before you know it you are minutes away.
What is FOMO?
FOMO is the fear of missing something good or important. It creates a bad feeling and leads to a connectivity addiction often your smartphone. Also lets you influence your work FOMO, then it can have far-reaching consequences for your career.
Do you also agree that you suddenly jump on Twitter or Facebook while working on a project (or during breakfast at home) is and you do not exactly remember how you ended up? Scrolling through your timeline you always come back new messages that you did not know, and before you know it you are minutes away. Or do you know the feeling that you unlock your smartphone, e-mail icon with a number sees it, they do not want to click, but this still does?
“Beautiful exterior stories’
Through social media, we are increasingly faced with equations, nice photos, the relations of our friends and choices made by our friends, such as the recently purchased gadgets. This constant updates with cheerful and perfect messages, which I often refer to as’ exterior stories, the feeling may arise that gets worse with you or that you are worth less. You wonder how your friend who can pay vacation while you earn the same. Or where someone buy some great clothes.
Addiction
If you are not completely you have actions under control and these impulses determine your behavior, there is a form of addiction. You fear that your friends do something super cool without you knowing and therefore you feel bad. The smartphone is a part of our life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and pushes these impulses in our brain inside. In almost every context: on the toilet, during dinner, during a meeting and unfortunately while operating a vehicle. Some young people put in the middle of the night even their alarm clock to check social media!
Specifically, the younger generation, who grew up in a connected world, suffer from FOMO. They are used to having everything on demand is there. They can watch movies directly from Netflix or Coolblue ordering something that same evening will be delivered. Building relationships is alien to them. Often there is a lack of social skills to make human contact, because nowadays is through Facebook, Tinder, etc.
Hygge
This is not from them, but we can not deny this. And we can help, for example, to find balance and not get sucked in to short-term of a sales organization. On the other hand though still some young people pay more attention to the small, homey things, as can be seen in the trend for the Danish hygge, which means something like coziness and quaintness.
Researching FOMO
Investigations showed from 2013 include psychologist Andrew Przybylski (University of Essex) already indicates that people suffering from FOMO, are less satisfied with their lives than the average person. They also feel less connected, less competent and less autonomous than people who do not suffer missing something.
In 2012, an article in Harvard Business Review published a study that showed that the feeling that occurs within social media (including WhatsApp), can be so rewarding that you lose the sense of time. A good feeling is activated in the brains, there comes dopamine released. It feels great to receive an answer and give in the form of a like, retweet, share, or message. This feeling is normally associated with sex, money and food.
Chronical Sadness
Social media can also trigger unpleasant feelings. Here you can read how to use Facebook is linked to depressive symptoms. With FOMO, you start feeling sad. Social media makes it sad feel worse, not better. It is not very often to use Facebook. But if you depend on it to feel happy. Focus on what feels good and you feel good. The key to feel welcome attention.
Attention
As Paul Dolan (professor of behavioral science at the London School of Economics and Political Science) writes in his book Happiness by Design (aff.): “Attention is the line that keeps your life. If you’re not up happy, you might give your attention to the wrong things. Get your attention off the negative and look at the positive. ”
Social media as a driver
Social media is not the culprit, but form a supercharger. Because we are 24 × 7 are connected to each other and comparing ourselves with others (who show online at their best), you probably know where this is going to lead to, right? And that’s what research shows: people with FOMO prefer to swap the real world for a something else, where they try to find their happiness.
And social media like Facebook can make you absolutely happy. But do not scroll and comparing (unconsciously or consciously). Use it as a tool to make arrangements outside the virtual world. Example: use Facebook to meet up with your friends and play a game of football outside, it’s healthy. Now, it took the eye-to-eye contact between people increase. But it is unhealthy if your social media channels will use instead of playing a game of football.
FOMO in the workplace
I note also FOMO in the workplace, for example in the form of smart phones on the table during meetings, where people still look at it as it lights up. I also see regular laptops open during meetings, so meanwhile emails can be eliminated and social media timelines are checked. The first steps to protect employees against legal 24 × 7 email recently made in France.
Do you have FOMO?
FOMO is not new and is not due to smartphones and social media. They are indeed drivers of it. I am sure that everyone has a little dazed by FOMO. The disadvantage of FOMO is that it takes away the fun, relaxed moments.
The essence is to teach them to go. How? That works for everybody else. For example, I once a year need a digital detox again after the summer holidays. I also take quite time apart for myself every day for five minutes.
9 tips to FOMO
- Disconnect to reconnect, or: go occasionally offline. Take some time off and remember why you actually checked your smartphone so often.
- Be thankful for ‘ordinary’. Often these are the little things you do not stand still anymore. Your family, your friends, play football with your kids on the beach. Imagine that you lose those things tomorrow. Have they come to appreciate and want to give extra attention.
- Incorporate your e-mail only three times a day at fixed times.
- Turn push notifications on your smartphone.
- Don’t answer all incoming notifications instantly.
- Keep your smartphone outside of the bedroom. If your smartphone as an alarm clock, buy an alarm clock and charge the smartphone in the bedroom.
- Say “no” more often at a networking event or party if you feel pressured to have been there.
- Prioritize all your activities, social media should be the last.
- Enjoy a meal in a restaurant. Take up one smartphone with the group to take a picture and leave the rest at home.
- Write a week in a notebook on how often you use social media for any purpose.
What do you do to prevent FOMO? Let me know in the comments.