FOMO
sort of a part 2 to my “worst creation” post…but let’s talk about social media, once again, and its severe impact on our wellbeing.
let’s pretend we’re in some illusion where we’re inside instagram/facebook/tiktok and the posts we scroll through are surrounding us on both sides. and here you see a long long path ahead of you, where the posts continue indefinitely. if you’ve ever watched “the emoji movie,” you may know what im talking about :) well…here’s the thing. as you keep walking this addicting path, you see posts about people on vacation, people in happy, healthy relationships, beautiful mansions, the biggest gossip circulating around your favorite celebrities, maybe even people from school or work are out partying and having the time of their life. like discussed previously, you start to compare these posts to your life and it’s not even the sense that there might be better things that you could be doing at this moment, but it’s the feeling that you’re missing out on something fundamentally important that others are experiencing right now.
FOMO, fear of missing out, is a feeling or perception that others are having more fun, living better lives, or experiencing better things than you are. it involves a deep sense of envy and affects your self-esteem.
thanks to social media…it’s becoming increasingly more common and can cause significant stress in your life.
it’s certainly not a good thing. it leads you to check social media again and again so you don’t feel out of the loop. so you know you’re doing okay. so you don’t feel left out. and yeah, maybe sometimes that alleviates the anxiety — but often it doesn’t. and either way it drives you to keep running around the digital hamster wheel to feel okay with yourself.
now here’s the real question: is this just a symptom of the generation that we’re in? is it no big deal? or is it telling us something we need to know/change?
kind of, no, yes. for starters, if you’re caught in the FOMO cycle you’re probably not feeling too great about your life. FOMO often originates in unhappiness and inadequacies.
have you ever heard of: the grass is always greener on the other side?…meaning that people often assume that there are better things in other places. that’s FOMO in a simple cliche for you. you’ll feel like you’re missing out on life.
i’ve been there, making comparisons between my life and those i see displayed on social media…and yeah, it’s not easy on the mind. i always felt anxious about not progressing or living a life that is not as exciting as it could or should be. the more i kept comparing myself to other people, the more i ruined my own self-esteem.
when you’re not feeling so hot about how your life is treating you or you’re wondering if everyone else is having more fun than you are, you wonder if you can, per se, “scratch” the itch? and how do you do this? DUH…you check social media. in fact, FOMO leads people to check social media right after they wake up, before they go to bed, during meals, during school…literally every waking moment. it’s like second nature now to unlock your phone and head directly to a social media platform. it’s been wired in! and not only that, it’s been wired in as an alleviator, a problem solver to our own insecurities.
only one problem there, guys: it actually makes you feel worse.
social media doesn’t provide a well-rounded picture of people’s lives. it’s more like the cherry-picked perfection version. even if we logically know that these platforms aren’t an accurate depiction of people’s lives, confronting your seeming deficiencies 24/7 against an unachievable false reality can really hammer your already vulnerable self-esteem. you’re left defenseless, comparing your seemingly “boring” life to their highly-edited beautiful, awesome one.
so, what’s the common response to this? you slam down an uno-reverse card. you say “HAHA! IN YOUR FACE! look at this…my life is worthy too!” YOU start to post something too, as if to say: look at me! i’m cool, too!
and there lies the problem in itself…this only strengthens the cycle. posting to alleviate your discomfort also has an important secondary effect: by presenting your carefully edited pictures, YOU just made anyone who sees them feel worse. YOU’RE SPREADING THE VIRUS!
it’s great for these social media platforms. they’re greedy for engagement! but, it’s horrible for people’s wellbeing and overall happiness.
the key to feeling content with our lives really comes down to one thing: attention.
we all have bad things we could think about, but they don’t bother us when we pay no attention to them. “look on the bright side” is another cliche (jeez, sorry!), but perfectly represents what i’m trying to pick at. changing our behavior is as much about withdrawing attention from the negatives as it is about attending to the positives.
easier said than done though, right? how do we focus our attention so that we appreciate the real world and don’t turn to social media to achieve this inauthentic sense of joy?
it’s deceptively simple…gratitude!
don’t believe me, try this. look around. what good things might you be taking for granted? your friends? family? food? now, imagine those were taken away from you. mentally subtracting cherished moments or people from your life makes you appreciate them more, makes you grateful, and in turn, sheds light on aspects in your life you may be taking for granted. the inevitable comparisons to the inauthentic lives on social media makes you feel like you have less. realizing the things you are lucky to already possess makes you feel like you have more.
that was a lot, so let’s recap.
FOMO starts with you already feeling like your life has missing gaps and you’re not completely happy with how life has been treating you.
social media makes it worse. now, this is not to say that these platforms are evil — but heavily relying on them for your own happiness is.
happiness, whatever that may mean to you, is all about attention. focus on the good and you will feel good.
gratitude is essential!
when we’re wired to compare ourselves to others and we’re stuck on a medium where everyone is cutting corners to look their best, we get even more lost with ourselves and our journey to contentment.
when you spend all that time staring in envy at the “oh so awesome” pictures of cleverly crafted bliss on social media, keep one thing in mind:
it’s your life you’re missing out on.
hope this helps you realize how beautiful your life and the authentic connections/experiences you’ve made are. your uniqueness is your power :)
happy living!
eliza
