+++
title = "My opinion on FOMO"
date = 2022-03-06
template = "blog-page.html"
[taxonomies]
tags = [ "advice", "minimalism" ]
+++

## What are you even talking about
Let me preface this by saying I know nothing about psychology and behavioral studies, so anything you read here is just my personal opinion.

Let's start with defining FOMO, to make sure we're all on the same spectrum.
> Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the feeling of apprehension that one is either not in the know or missing out on information, events, experiences, or life decisions that could make one's life better.

Source: [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out).

The Fear Of Missing Out is what drives modern society; It keeps us hooked to mainstream social media and drives newbie investors towards obvious rugpulls.

[Studies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563213000800) have correlated it to various negative behaviors, like social media addiction and even distracted driving.

## Am I affected by this?
Probably. As long as you have a friend group and an account on any mainstream social network, yes you are.
It's the feeling that drives you to check out your friends' Stories on Instagram, the dread you feel when somebody else reaches a life goal before you do, the fear that pushes people to buy limited-time merchandise before it runs out of stock.

## My experience
FOMO has been a constant for my entire life and just now I'm trying to write this as a way to think critically about it and try to avoid being pushed by stupid instincts. I've come to realize that Discord is the thing that slows down my productivity the most: as soon as I enter a voice chat with my friend, I stop being productive in any capacity and I'm also uncapable of resuming for the whole day.

Even after I turn off my PC, I still think about what my friends are doing and what I'm missing out on, be it a Gartic Phone round or any stupid discussion I might have had on there. The biggest problem is, it's entirely subconscious. I often find myself uncapable of concentrating and don't know what's the cause of it; I've been eliminating elements one by one to find out the cause of this and turns out that distancing myself totally from social media AND Discord actually solves it.

It's not immediate either, it took a few days for me but your mileage may vary depending on a lot of factors. Of course, I plan on restoring my online presence after I have graduated but it's useful to know what exactly was causing me to waste all of my time for months.

## Any solutions?
I think you should evaluate possible solutions yourself, as FOMO is strictly dependant on your personality and experiences. You could try eliminating or replacing parts of your habits regularly, like I did, to find out if something is more destructive than you might initially think.

As I was researching this, I found out about JOMO. It stands for "Joy Of Missing Out" and it's the exact opposite thing.
Embracing JOMO means you dedicate a few hours of the day to yourself and stop worrying about how your friends are doing at life and which continent gets invaded next.

Modern society does not wait for anybody, there's nothing wrong in taking a break and focusing on yourself. You can always catch up later.

* [Another interesting article about FOMO](gopher://republic.circumlunar.space:70/0/~katolaz/phlog/20190219_fomo.txt), on Gopher;
* [Same article](https://gopherproxy.vern.cc/gopher/republic.circumlunar.space:70/0/~katolaz/phlog/20190219_fomo.txt), but proxied to be viewed on modern browsers.