How The Pandemic Put The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) On Hold

It is a rapidly changing world we live in, with thousands of opportunities and activities to choose from every single day, intensified by the disastrous effect of Social Media. Of course, its advantages are undeniable: Social Media platforms work fast, most of them are easy to use, the reach is enormous, creating interaction is a piece of cake and they keep you informed on recent developments. When you post a photo, it can be viewed anywhere in the world within the same second. If you are looking for a job, you just throw out a message on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram and to read the news you no longer have to cycle to the store to buy a newspaper. Sounds pretty good right? But despite all those benefits, Social Media as a whole also has many harmful effects. And what I'm especially concerned about are the mental consequences. On Instagram or Snapchat it may seem as if everyone in your network is having a great time while you’re setting at home, doing nothing at all, feeling like you are missing out on everything.

FOMO
[FO - MO] 

Fear Of Missing Out; a social fear, coming from the conviction that others might have fun while the person experiencing the fear is not present. 

The stupid thing about FOMO is that everyone knows that its existence is totally unnecessary, but hardly anyone can escape from it. Because you cannot stay behind, in a world where everyone is aware of everything and videos of parties serve as proof that you were there, instead of as a memory. Social or online presence is considered a benchmark on the ‘scale of coolness’ and spending a day without responding is downright rude. Until recently I saw Social Media as the ultimate way to show myself. I posted about the beautiful moments in my life for likes and followers, while I deleted photos on which I didn’t look perfect. On vacations, I could take 50 different images of the same building just to have a choice at the end of the day, as to which one was worth posting. And while I did that, it felt a bit like I was changing from a unique, breathing, living person into a product that could be marketed with the right marketing strategy. Are the colors not bright enough? Just throw an extra filter over it. Do your legs look thicker than they really are? Take a different pose. Fourteen times if necessary.

Satisfaction seems to have disappeared from the dictionary and ‘being forgotten’ scares us to death these days.

I could be wrong, but I feel that this applies to so many more people. Appearance and popularity largely determine the proportions. To make a difference for a number of people no longer seems to be enough. That group needs to be ‘bigger, bigger, bigger’ and what we are willing to do for a few extra followers or fake friends is honestly scandalous. Complete identities are stolen, photos are faked en masse and personalities are easily denied. On social media, stress, fear, insecurity and unhappiness are hard to find, making these feelings in real life increasingly inevitable. A tunnel vision arises in which people mainly look at what they don’t have in comparison to others. That big BMW of a colleague may indeed have cost more than your second-hand Ford, but you’re forgetting that the neighbors don’t have a car at all. In this way you constantly compare your own possessions, experiences and life to those of someone else. However, happiness does not exist in comparison to others.

Happiness is a unique good and has different values ​​for everyone.

For that reason, I chose to delete my Social Media accounts. The pandemic has given me that final push. I guess the entire corona period could also be nicknamed the FOMO break because even though we spend more ‘boring’ evenings on the couch than we ever did before, that is suddenly a lot less bad. While we hang out at home, we’re not confronted with the drinking, the parties and the spontaneous one out of seventy models photos of others every three minutes. Everyone is at home, so it automatically makes you feel less bad when you’re chilling yourself. We’re all in this together and you know you’re not missing anything at all. I just hope that I am not the only one who is realizing now, during the FOMO break, that this is no different when everything returns to ‘normal’. In order to have a good life, you don’t need to visit or participate in every single little thing.

It's simply impossible to do and see everything you find online, so why even give it a shot at all?