Humans like to use acronyms in everything. Whether it’s on the medical field and uses it on diseases, the cyberworld, especially with social media, or when students try to memorize stuff for their exams & quizzes that have enumerations on them and/or just simply around circle of friends. Some years ago, people coined the acronym of “you only live once” or we use it now as YOLO.
And now we did it again with FOMO. As Dan Ruiz says in his article that, the “fear of missing out” or FOMO is a form of social anxiety where individuals are concerned about missing out on opportunities, new experiences and fun activities. So, FOMO is the new YOLO of some sorts and it’s constantly use by college students. And yes, this phenomenon is common among college students and yes, this generation is weird.
When we think about college, this is the last stage of being in an institution that we do with learning stuff, doing homework, projects, research or thesis, and everything the college people require students do, one thing that comes to our mind is we get one heck out of experience to cherish. In this time of our life, we make new connections with strangers turn peers, developing adult friendships and mature relationships with others, and a pavement into our future roles as professional people.
FOMO is one of the causes of stress among college students because they don’t want to feel left out of something their friends are doing. They can be having fun in parties, going on a road trips, swimming in beaches or pools or anything to do with water, or just simply hanging out somewhere. And when they don’t go into any of this, they are constantly checking their phones and log in into their social media accounts, specifically Facebook, to check for posts and statuses of their friends who are having the time of their life in any of those events with others. “Researchers disagree on the cause of FOMO, but they do agree that this inability to stop checking our phones or social media can distract us from important things happening in the moment”. – By Olivia Rauch, PHE-in-training
Students want to do everything and be everywhere at the same time. Social media technologies like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook are directly linked to the rise of FOMO, according to huffingtonpost.com. With at least 24 percent of teenagers online ‘almost constantly,’ it’s no surprise that fear of missing out is an epidemic among millennials. “FOMO is especially rampant in the millennial community because they see a peer achieving something they want, and somehow in their mind, that achievement means something is being ‘taken away’ from them,” said Darlene McLaughlin, M.D., assistant professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and a psychiatry and behavioral health specialist with Texas A&M Physicians.
A lot of things may cause this “disease” to happen to everyone. One, we are human beings who are attention-seeking creatures and that we sometimes want company from others to survive. Let’s face it, we are needy people. Like puppies who follows you around & wants to be with you all the time. ‘They are lovely creatures.’ Especially the generation nowadays, college students who easily gets depressed when they are not doing anything relevant or rather fun or just being alone. In this particular situation. Too dark? Anyway, I will relate it to one of the episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ where they introduce “The Blitz”. In this episode, they told the story about how they came up with the word blitz, which means to them is kind of like being a FOMO person, a person who doesn’t want to be out of the loop because the other person has to do something or go somewhere. And also, it shows the side of the person who have been left out feeling scared and insecure of being the ‘Blitz’.
It’s a funny show, totally recommended to be watch. Two, people don’t want to feel left out from experiencing new possibilities and potential social experiences, whether by choice or necessity.We, humans or college students, want to keep up or be up-to-date to trends or whatever new interest people are talking about now. Three, it is human nature to want to be liked, and feel included and needed by others. The fear of missing out can impact people mentally, psychologically, and emotionally, but specifically, with the rise of social media, Millennials and the people belong in the Generation Z are being impacted in a way that has never been seen. And lastly, college students need to up their game in school if they want to achieve their goals and dreams in life, which is true, but they sometimes feel like they are sacrificing their lives of missing an awesome night out with their peers to keep their GPA up. They also feel guilty because they are not with their friends and spending good time with them.And they feel like intruding the moment when the next day or the next time they hang out with each other, their friends are closer than ever. Because maybe they shared inside jokes during their night out or something.
They are a lot of researches, journals or articles, and blogs that is talking about this phenomenon among college students. They are a lot of different situations where FOMO gets the best of all of us. A lot of types of people who experience this basically feels sad and guilty of missing out and being out of the loop. And sometimes they feel like a failure or a garbage for having to missed everything with friends or family by doing something different. So, instead of just spending quality time with family, they turn to social media and obsess about the posts of pictures and videos of their friends having fun without them. They feel envious and they tend to resent their selves and get jealous with their friends having fun.
“This is probably an exaggeration, but FOMO tends to cloud our judgment. Everyone feels left out from time to time. It’s just a part of life. While it may seem like it’s the end of the world when everyone is having fun and you’re missing out, tomorrow is a whole new day: A new chance for adventure. Or even more FOMO… the vicious cycle never seems to end”. –by:SarahDesiderio¬¬¬_Lfestyle@hercampus.com
In conclusion, FOMO has been existing and affecting our daily lives, but with the internet we keep up with it. College students now are mostly Millennials and Generation Z people that are basically digital natives or a phone is always attached to their hands or any form of technology that uses the internet. They are also humans who needs constant company and attention from others because they live stressful lives. So YES, FOMO is REAL and affects or common among college students.
By:Abulencia6310
Sources:
https://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/Peer_Health_Educator/2014/11/fomo-phenomena
https://edtechmagazine.com/higher/article/2014/01/college-students-have-fomo
Image Sources:
https://www.ivyinvestment.com/content/fomo-jomo
https://psych2016spring.wordpress.com/2016/02/18/social-media-fueling-low-self-esteem/
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