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Is
FOMO making you paranoid?
The
digital generation suffers from a symptom called the ‘Fear Of Missing Out’.
Without the daily dose of ‘like’, ‘share’, ‘status’ and picture updates’,
people feel frustrated, even inadequate.
Dad: We are going on a family holiday to Europe! Daughter: Wow!
Dad: But there's one condition. Holiday time will be strictly family
time. No phones, iPads or laptops allowed. Daughter: That’s not
done. I cannot stay detached from my friends and the world just because we
are going on a holiday! T’S the most common argument in most families
today. No matter how hard one tries, it’s an irresistible need these days
to know what everyone is up to all the time, be it friends, family,
acquaintances, colleagues, ex-es or even a total stranger. A better part of
the day is spent checking ‘statuses’, ‘likes’ comments and pictures
uploaded on social networking sites, and a day without gadgets, that
connect people 24x7, almost drives people insane. The fingertip generation
simply can’t survive without instant information — trivial or
earth-shattering, petty or important. You may have pondered on the matter
but now there’s a study that confirms this belief.
According to the Connecting and Communicating
Online: State of Social Media study 2012, 62 per cent of adults who are
currently a member of more than one social networking site, say they keep
an eye on sites because they don’t want to miss out on anything. The study
also says that this Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is so severe that nearly 40
per cent of these people would rather undertake a potentially painful
activity — like reading War and Peace at one go, do their taxes, get a root
canal, even spend a night in jail — before even thinking of giving up their
social networking profiles!
Eighty per cent teens sleep with their mobile
phones near their pillows and send thousands of text messages every day
even before they get out of bed. Says Natasha D’costa, 19, a college
student, “It’s next to impossible to resist checking Facebook, Twitter, or
my BBM every two minutes. Through them, I get to know exactly what my
friends are doing at what time, where, and with whom.” It may partly be
curiosity, considering that people have a voracious appetite for gossip or
general inquisitiveness about other people’s lives; but when this kind of
inquisitiveness turns into obsession, FOMO creeps in. D’costa explains
further, “I need to be available to my friends 24X7. What if one of them
breaks up with her boyfriend or gets into an argument with her parents?
They may need instant solace.”
Most of us cannot control the urge to text or call
while driving and interrupt one call to take another without knowing who’s
on the line. “There are nights when I am unable to sleep due to insecurity.
I wake up in the wee hours of morning to check whether I have received any
text message or missed an important call,” says Kirti Sharma, 40, a tutor.
We are so addicted to these social networking mediums that we can’t stay by
ourselves anymore. “I am aware that I am obsessed with my phone but I
cannot help it. I have reached a stage where, if a friend doesn’t pick up
my call, I start getting anxious thinking she is ignoring me,” adds Sharma.
FOMO is an uncontrollable yearning to be at two or
more places at once; a condition fuelled by the fear that missing out on
something can put a dent in our happiness, status, or career. It’s also
partly the product of one’s growing need to be present everywhere. People
are bombarded with so much information in this consumerist society that the
anxiety of missing out on something can make them paranoid.
Says clinical psychologist Seema Hingorrany, “Due
to various personal and psychological reasons, people have started craving
attention. Today, we all want to be the centre of attraction and be
noticed.” Tinu Cherian, 32, an IT professional who has 1.8 lakh followers
on Twitter and posts a minimum of 40 to 50 tweets a day, says, “I have a
fascination for information. Through Twitter, I get to know what’s happening
around the world. I tweet regularly and 60 per cent of my tweets are
automated. I schedule tweets in order to stay active on the site in spite
of a busy schedule.” The symptoms of FOMO include the inability to put away
one’s mobile phone, excessive texting, tweeting even from the toilet and
showing up at events uninvited. Cherian says he feels angry and frustrated
when he’s unable to tweet due to network problems.
In the book Alone Together, American author and
psychologist Sherry Turkle searches for answers for such frustrations by
studying how digital devices are affecting our communication and
relationships. She says in an interview to a magazine, “Earlier, people
used to think ‘I have a feeling, I want to make a call’. Now, it’s more
like ‘I want to have a feeling, so, I need to send a text’. You don’t know
your own thoughts and feelings until you connect and someone tells you what
you are thinking!”
Relationship counsellor Dr Rajan Bhonsle says, “I
am dealing with a lot of cases where people say they prefer texting to
face-to-face conversations because
when it comes to latter, one can’t control what he or she is going to say,
and one doesn’t know what it could lead to. People find the immediacy and
unpredictability of a face-to-face conversation upsetting.”
We are so accustomed to overuse of technology that
a lot of times we unknowingly ignore the person sitting right in front of
us. Cherian remembers one such incident from his life. “A few months ago,
I’d taken my wife to a posh restaurant to celebrate our first marriage
anniversary. Being a Twitter addict, I kept tweeting and re-tweeting till
my wife got mad and just walked off,” he says.
The influence of technology is such that we find
simulations of life more alluring than life itself. Turkle writes in her
book, “We already filter companionship through machines; the next stage is
to accept machines as companions.”
A robotic future awaits us until we consciously
make an effort to use gadgets as tools to communicate our feelings to other
people rather than getting unhealthily attached to the machine itself.
DO THESE TO BE ‘FOMO’ FREE
• Try not to reply to a text message immediately, unless it’s very urgent.
• Stop being generous when befriending people on social networking sites.
Ask yourself if the person will add value to your life before you follow
them on Twitter or befriend them on Facebook.
• Define your priorities. The next time you are out with your loved ones,
unplug by leaving your phone in your pocket.
• Develop a “they’ll call back” attitude. If someone really needs to talk
to you, they will call back. Simple.
“Earlier, people used to think
‘I have a feeling, I want to make a call’. Now, it’s more like ‘I want to
have a feeling, so, I need to send a text’” — Sherry Turkle, professor
of the social studies of science & technology at MIT
Shikha
Shah TL121223
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