Wake up, check phone. Get dressed, check phone. Go to school, check phone. Go to extracurriculars, check phone. Do homework, check phone. Hop into bed, check phone. Many teens who are addicted to their devices share this tedious daily routine. According to The Washington Post, teens spend nearly nine hours a day on social media.
When in need of a break from school work, many students turn to social media. With everyone constantly updating social media, it is easy to find out what people are doing at any given time. But, the knowledge of what everyone is doing comes at a price: FOMO.
FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is so widespread that it was added to Oxford Dictionary in 2013. It is depicted as “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media.”
Before the widespread presence of phones and social media, it wasn’t as easy to constantly check up on one another. When kids discovered that their peers had been hanging out together in live time, it was typically after they had all gone home, at which point it didn’t matter because the fun was over. Nowadays, it takes just a few clicks to see that your friends are hanging out together. Whether it’s seeing a post on Instagram or looking at someone’s Snapchat story, the feeling of being left out is universal.
According to Jean M. Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University who writes for The Atlantic, the feeling of missing out is more widespread with today’s teens than it was generations before.
“For all its power to link kids day and night, social media also exacerbates the age-old teen concern about being left out,” Twenge said. “Today’s teens may go to fewer parties and spend less time together in person, but when they do congregate, they document their hangouts relentlessly—on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook. Those not invited to come along are keenly aware of it. Accordingly, the number of teens who feel left out has reached all-time highs across age groups. Like the increase in loneliness, the upswing in feeling left out has been swift and significant.”
According to Academic Technology Integrationist Rita Kienle, FOMO became an issue once people started using social media more often.
“When kids see things on social media that they may not be a part of, they are more inclined to think they are missing out on something,” Kienle said. “If there was no social media, they wouldn’t have known. When I was a kid, we didn’t have social media, and I didn’t know that kids down the street were doing something else because I was in my own house.”
FOMO can happen at anytime. Even if you’re invited but couldn’t attend, you can still look online and be upset that your friends are hanging out with each other. You could be shopping on 5th Avenue in New York or eating macaroons in Paris, and still feel like you should be with them on their Snapchat stories and Instagram pictures.
Because teenagers strive to have the perfect Instagram, an aesthetic VSCO and high streaks, logging onto social media becomes second nature. Teenagers can become so invested in making their accounts perfect that they go out just to take photos. Whether it is a record store or a nice brunch place, people will do anything just to get a good photo for them to post online. With all of these “responsibilities,” it can feel as if you are attached to your phone all the time.
“I love technology and social media, and I think it’s an important part of young people’s lives,” Kienle said. “I would never stop kids from using it, but I would like them to use it wisely. It’s a part of their life, and I think of it as an extension of their hand. I mean, you grew up with it and don’t know anything different.”
If you find yourself experiencing FOMO, it might help to take a break and delete some of your social media apps, if only temporarily. Even if you do feel left out when your friends are together, a lot of the times what they are doing is not as fun as it is made out to be. Almost all pictures that you see online are posed and make it more fun than it seems so, it gives the allusion that they are having a better time than they actually are.
“It’s hard because everyone is different, but my advice is to make your path,” Kienle said. “So if you see that your friends are doing things without you, maybe find other people to do stuff with. The people [who] are doing stuff without you probably aren’t the right people [for you] to hang out with. Most importantly, try not to feel dread or [feel] like they don’t want you around.”
