Is FOMO controlling college students’ lives?

By: Charlene McCallum

Photos: Pixabay

FOMO has a huge impact on college students, and the decisions they make to benefit themselves. FOMO can be experienced when students believe that they should be living their best lives in college, but constantly look to social media. This can eventually affect how they think about their own life.

When sitting at home and looking on social media there’s a glimpse of “Kayla’s proposal party and her big ring,” “I’m going to Paris for spring break,” “I just received a promotion,” and “I had the best weekend ever!” There’s a feeling that everybody’s life is so much better than an average human being’s life. That feeling is FOMO.

FOMO is the fear of missing out. This can include social events or general life events. According to an article The Economist, “Your fear of missing out originates in a part of the brain called the amygdala. The almond sized regions deep in the brain are the main orchestrators of fear. The impression that one is socially excluded from something important can stimulate the amygdala.”

The question people find themselves asking is, are they afraid of actually missing out, or afraid of missing out on the opportunity?

Recent studies have shown that FOMO is linked to feelings of dissatisfaction. “The problem with FOMO is the individuals it impacts are looking outward instead of inward,” 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.

 “When you’re so tuned in to the ‘other,’ or the ‘better’ (in your mind), you lose your authentic sense of self. This constant fear of missing out means you are not participating as a real person in your own world,” McLaughlin said.

Is it fun enough? Is it exciting enough? There’s a lot of pressure socially to having and enjoying a great life.

FOMO has a huge impact on college students, and the decisions they make to benefit themselves. FOMO can be experienced when students believe that they should be living their best lives in college, but constantly look to social media. This can eventually affect how they think about their own life.

Another acronym that has a relationship with FOMO, is YOLO. YOLO means you only live once. “YOLO is mirrored by FOMO,” said Sociologist and Sociology Professor, Delario Lindsey. “People want to use this fear of missing out to go out and experience the “only live once” aspect” said Lindsey.

FOMO can be determined amongst the classes of college students. Freshmen are new to the school, so they feel obligated to go out and make new friends. Sophomores get the gist of college so far and already formed their friend groups. Juniors are almost finished with school but still have an established group of friends, and seniors are on their way out, looking for new opportunities in order to jump start their lives.

There are two different ways that college students can experience FOMO, according to Social Psychologist and Psychology professor, Dr. Buckner. Those ways are from social media and through a peer to peer aspect. Even though many cases are peer to peer, you still witness your peers on social media.

“It is a natural human tendency to compare yourself to others. Human beings are social and they strive for connection, and interconnectedness with others, and part of that is comparing yourself to others when you’re connecting, especially through social media it takes its total extreme,” Buckner said.

Major Social Media platforms include Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. These social media platforms allow people to post videos, pictures, and updates on things they are doing with their lives.

FOMO and social media has affected sophomore, Kaliah Stanley, and Psychology student Linda Alegria’s life in many ways during their college experience. Social media and FOMO can bring out a lot of negative emotions amongst students.

“Social media can be damaging,” according to Stanley. “It lowers self-esteem because it sets standards that people are supposed to abide by and it’s wrong. People are not able to meet these standards, for example relationship goals and best friend goals.”

Seeing these types of goals on social media gives a perception of how a relationship or a friendship should be. Giving a glimpse into how they want to be treated and how they need to have this type of relationship or friendship to be perfect.

Another perspective of social media and FOMO is the fact that “Social Media captures a moment in time,” Alegria said. “These moments are never a negative moment, it’s always a “LIT” moment and a happy moment, the best moment, the moment you look cute. Generally, all of your social medias are always going to look nice with filters and other people.”

Many of the accounts people follow are Instagram celebrities, regular celebrities, lifestyle blogs, and their friends page, ultimately looking at ways to compare their lives to them.

“We have different parts of our self-concept: who we used to be, who we are now, and who would we ideally like to be,” Buckner said.

“This ties into that kind of future self, who we would ideally like to be. People are constantly striving toward growth, development and change, like improvement. People tend to move toward a kind of growth and development in terms of who they are and who they want to be, so when you see this person representing something you like to be, then you kind of latch on to that and then aspire to that, and then it reflects back on who you are and who you are aspiring to be.”

According to Buckner, reasons why students may compare their lives to others on social media is because “people make social comparisons; they want to figure out something about who they are and know where they stand.”

“If you’re good at something, or if you’re not sure how good you are at something you can look to how others are and you can make inferences about how you are and if you’re aspiring to be something, or better, or different. You can kind of infer what it would look like if you were better at certain things,” Buckner said.

“It’s not unhealthy to just make comparisons between you and your peers. It can even help you strive to attain things that you want to attain like if you are really close with a friend, and she’s doing better in a class than you and it motivates you to do better to, that’s not bad, but it is exaggerated, and becoming so exaggerated it can have negative effects,” Buckner said.

This explains the mental impact social media has on students, to be someone they are not. A question that always comes up when talking about FOMO is in relation to envy and low self-esteem.

“Jealousy is not a bad thing, but when jealousy turns into envy it’s a bad thing, and it comes from not being okay with yourself,” Stanley said.

“Communication, people do not know how to communicate, and when they do not know how to communicate it turns into jealousy, then hatred and then to envy. Not being okay with yourself ties into low self-esteem, because you don’t feel good about yourself at the moment, so you want the world to feel the same way you feel,” Alegria said.

It is also suggested that FOMO can relate to why there is much depression and anxiety associated with it. “FOMO is the expression of anxiety,” said Lindsey.

“The average college student spends eight to 10 hours killing time on their cell phone each day, and when we consistently believe we are ‘missing out,’ anxiety and depression may set in,” according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania summarized in a Science Daily article.

Another approach that is a common aspect of FOMO is the peer to peer aspect.  FOMO also comes about when you are surrounded by certain groups of friends, which could also peer pressure you into doing things that can be good or bad. In this case we talk about a good type of peer pressure and FOMO.

Alegria explains that “You can be surrounded by introverts, extroverts, by people who only study, and people who work.” “There are ways for people to be a part of different groups, but you have to learn to differentiate those groups.  You have to surround yourself around successful people, people that are going to help you become successful in order for you to be successful.”

“It’s not bad to be a follower, if you surround yourself with people that is worth following,” “I want to be peer pressured into doing good things,” Stanley said.

FOMO will exist forever because of the future of social media. Though it may seem like there is no cure to FOMO, there are ways that a person can look on the bright side and use FOMO as a way to understand themselves in a positive way.

There are different ways of conquering FOMO, but conquering this aspect of fear starts within oneself first.

“Philosopher John Stuart Mill explained that modern society is the stifling of individuality,” Stanley said. “People should not set standards of how we should experience our experiences, which that is a problem of what FOMO does. Be okay with your situation, and your circumstances. Be okay with staying in your room if that is what you want to do. Be okay with decisions.”

“You have to change the way you respond to FOMO, if things like that make you feel bad tune them out. FOMO will always be a thing, but if each individual could take more control and try to keep it from making them feel bad about what they have and who they are. Certain goals will remind yourself of what you do have, and what you want.” “Strive for things that are within your reach and that is more meaningful. A lot of it is superficial, so maybe you have to figure out when you’re feeling FOMO,” Buckner said.

Alegria’s idea of conquering FOMO is “striving to be the best person you can be alone, it is all about learning who you are, what you like, and don’t like,” Alegria said. “Be okay with saying no, because there are so many times that you can get out of a situation but, if you do not know how to say no, you’re going to continue in that cycle. You have to teach people and influence others into doing that for themselves too. What is the point of knowing everything and not teaching someone too?”

Instead of leaning toward FOMO, think about the Acronym, JOMO. JOMO is “Joy of missing out and, feeling content with staying in and disconnecting as a form of self-care.” As Nathan Allen Pirtle from the digital marketing company “Work With The Coach” once said, “You’re not missing out on anything when you’re getting yourself together.” If a person looks at another for self-acceptance, one should evaluate their thoughts, and use those thoughts to be put into a more positive way of what it truly means to live life to the fullest.