FOMO has more to do with who you’re missing, rather than the experiences you’re missing out on.
Or that’s what the latest research suggests. Such “social underpinnings” of the phenomenon — which stands for Fear Of Missing Out — were explored by Jacqueline Rivkin, a behavioral researcher at Cornell University, US, and her colleagues.
While FOMO feels like you’re missing out on participating in something — whether that be an event or other opportunity — losing out on social interaction may be a crucial FOMO amplifier.
Yes, the feelings of envy or regret from missing that Taylor Swift concert or the big football final are real, but this study dug into the more mundane missed life events too.
It found that people feel FOMO from not seeing their friends at small social gatherings too.
So what is FOMO?
“It basically refers to this anxiety that a lot of us feel when we miss out on a social gathering with people that we really care about. It’s this sort of sinking, creeping feeling that people are bonding without us, and we have somehow missed that,” Rivkin told DW’s Science Unscripted.
The term has floated around for about 20 years, originating in online communities until it became a staple of common language.
FOMO isn’t limited to social settings either — it’s the name of a cryptocurrency and used as a motivator for stock investing. FOMO is also a term used as a marketing tool to encourage consumers to jump on products or opportunities.
Inside the FOMO study
Rivkin’s team performed seven experiments across thousands of participants to understand their responses to potential FOMO situations.
Rather than just looking at big concerts or rare experiences, participants were instead exposed to more banal moments in life.
“We were really interested in these kinds of more nuanced situations where maybe the thing that you missed wasn’t even that great. That really helps us understand that core psychology, that reason why you might still have that pit in your stomach … and it’s really about the fact that people were bonding with each other,” Rivkin said.
The situations included:
- Missing a concert that the participant thought their friends were going to.
- Missing a retreat with friends or strangers.
- Being admitted to a member-only social group in their community.
- Grading FOMO against content in personal social media feeds.
While the study only involved participants in the US, the fact that participants were from a range of ages and genders also showed that FOMO isn’t a phenomenon of the young.
“We find that pretty much anyone can get FOMO if there is a social group or sort of core group of people,” Rivkin said.
FOMO: symptoms and solutions
The last 10 years have seen a growing body of research trying to understand the effects of FOMO.
Among the linkages between FOMO experience and possible health consequences are sleep disturbances, social anxiety, depression, and academic decline.
In 2022, a Southern Connecticut State University study found FOMO among American college students could be predictive of consumptive or illegal behavior, such as increased alcohol and drug use.
Another from the University of Toledo suggested that increased or sometimes problematic smartphone usage among young people could predict feelings of FOMO or emotion dysregulation.
Rivkin explains more about her views on potential solutions in the latest episode of Science Unscripted:
Edited by: Fred Schwaller
Sources:
Anxiety About the Social Consequences of Missed Group Experiences Intensifies Fear of Missing Out. Published by Jacquelin R. Rifkin, Cindy Chan, Barbara E. Kahn in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
College student Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and maladaptive behavior: Traditional statistical modeling and predictive analysis using machine learning. Published by Paul C. McKee, Christopher J. Budnick, Kenneth S. Walters, Imad Antonios in PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274698.
Emotion dysregulation factors associated with problematic smartphone use severity: The mediating role of fear of missing out. Published by Chistiane Arrivillaga, Caleb J. Hallauer, Christian Montag and Jon D. Elhai in Addictive Behaviors
Fear of missing out: A brief overview of origin, theoretical underpinnings and relationship with mental health. Published by Mayank Gupta and Aditya Sharma in World Journal of Clinical cases https://doi.org/10.12998/wjcc.v9.i19.4881.
