The Trouble with F.O.M.O

During our Monday class the author of book “iDisorder: Understanding our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us”, Dr. Larry D. Rosen, came and talked to us about his book along with some other information about brain function and social media use. I then attended his lecture later that night in which he went into more detail about the generational differences and how we could help our brains from becoming over stimulated and therefore better students.

One point that I thought was particularly interesting during his lecture later that night was the differences between the generations and the anxiety younger generations get when they are separated from their electronic devices. According to a survey that Dr. Rosen and his team did, they found that the three older generations preferred face-to-face interactions with close friends, phone calls then emails (the only difference was that the Generation Net preferred Internet communication over phone calls).  However, the iGeneration put texting first, instant messaging second and THEN face-to-face interaction on their level of importance. During an experiment in which half of the students had their phones taken away and the other half were allowed to keep their phones, Dr. Rosen found that students who had their cell phones taken from them in the beginning of the experiment had a higher anxiety than students who were allowed to keep their phones. Where exactly did this anxiety stem from? Are kids really that attached to their smart phones that they can’t handle being in a room for sixty minutes without them?

Rosen claimed that the anxiety most likely stems from an addiction called F.O.M.O. (also known as the fear of missing out). It seems to mainly affect those who are from the iGeneration and it seems to be seeping into the younger generations. It stems from our obsession with social media and the developed need to check your Twitter or your Facebook for new tweets or notifications. People worry that they are missing out on something more fun than what they are doing so they constantly make sure they know what is happening in the online world around them and if they aren’t constantly checking they may miss something important. Some people with major F.O.M.O. even choose to stay home rather than go out with friends because they of how much they fear missing an online event.

This anxiety will only grow larger as we become more and more dependent on technology. The fear of missing out may start to cause more people social issues due to caring more about the online world rather than about those around them. If people cannot get over this fear, our generation may have a lot more issues we need to deal with in order to function better in society.