Is FOMO helping us? A look at social media use, FOMO, and young adults’ wellbeing.
Written by Julia Bastiaanssen
It’s Friday night. You just sat down on the couch with your take-out after an exhausting day at work. You’re about to open Netflix, when the thoughts start flooding in, “Am I lame? This is how I’m spending my Friday night? I should be out doing something.” And you wonder “What are my friends doing?” So, you open Instagram and are immediately inundated with images of your peers socializing, traveling, trying new things, and the thoughts continue. “Should I be doing that? Why didn’t they invite me? I’m missing out.” This all too well-known phenomenon has been popularly referred to as ‘The fear of missing out’ or FOMO. We’re all aware that the endless social media scrolling accompanied by the experience of FOMO doesn’t feel good, but how is it really harming us? And could it help us?
Most young adults have experienced 'FOMO.’ This refers to the sometimes intense worry or fear that your friends, family or peers may be having fun or memorable experiences without you (Przybylski et al. 2013). As many may suspect, FOMO has been found to be closely related to increased social media use (Roberts & David, 2019). It seems as though social media use and FOMO may be somewhat of a vicious cycle, where FOMO motivates increased social media use, which then increases FOMO, and so on (Groenestein et al., 2024). As an individual’s social media use and FOMO both increase, their risk for social network use disorders (SNUD) also increases, which can lead to various concerning outcomes (Montag & Markett, 2023). A SNUD or social media addiction occurs when an individual is driven to use social media excessively, leading to negative effects in multiple areas of their lives (Andreassen & Pallesen 2013). Some of these outcomes include poor sleep quality (Almeida, Marques & Gomes, 2022), increased cognitive failures (such as being more forgetful, inattentive or clumsy) (Montag & Markett, 2023), and overall lower rates of psychological well-being (Roberts & David, 2019).
But could heightened FOMO and social media use motivate us to behave in ways that could improve our wellbeing? Little research has explored this topic, but it seems as though it’s possible. Roberts and David (2019) found that although FOMO did not directly predict well-being, FOMO may improve our social connectedness and well-being by encouraging us to connect more with friends on social media. Ngo et al. (2023) found that students who were exposed to academic activities on social media were more likely to be influenced to participate, through FOMO and peer influence. These findings suggest that we may be able to channel our FOMO into motivation to do things that are good for us.
Clearly, more research is needed to fully understand all the harms and help social media use and FOMO can have on us. But if you find yourself falling victim to some of the downsides of FOMO, try this advice from Chan et al (2022). They propose that using their mindfulness technique may help reduce the symptoms of FOMO and lead to a more positive feeling that they call JOMO (joy of missing out). The mindfulness practice involves three steps:
1. Use calming and meditation techniques to gain awareness of your thoughts and feelings surrounding social media use.
2. Reflect or journal about these observations to acquire insight into how your social media use leads to these negative thoughts and feelings.
3. Create concrete intentions to change your habits or exposures to social media to lessen negative feelings and act on those intentions.
So, the next time you’re sitting down to decompress with some Netflix, hopefully it's JOMO, and not FOMO that you’re experiencing.
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References
Almeida, F., Marques, D., & Gomes, A. (2022). A preliminary study on the association between social media at night and sleep quality: The relevance of FOMO, cognitive pre-sleep arousal, and maladaptive cognitive emotion regulation. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 64. doi:10.1111/sjop.12880
Andreassen, C., & Pallesen, S. (2013). Social network site addiction - An overview. Current Pharmaceutical Design, 20. doi:10.2174/13816128113199990616
Chan, S. S., Van Solt, M., Cruz, R. E., Philp, M., Bahl, S., Serin, N., … Canbulut, M. (2022). Social media and mindfulness: From the fear of missing out (FOMO) to the joy of missing out (JOMO). Journal of Consumer Affairs, 56(3), 1312–1331. doi:10.1111/joca.12476
Montag, C., & Markett, S. (2023). Social media use and everyday cognitive failure: investigating the fear of missing out and social networks use disorder relationship. BMC Psychiatry, 23. doi:10.1186/s12888-023-05371-x
Ngo, T. T. A., Nguyen, N., La, N., Trương, N., & Nguyen, H. (2023). Impact of academic-related peer influence and fear of missing out from social media on academic activities of adolescents. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 22, 527–555. doi:10.28945/5223
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. F. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behaviour., 29, 1841–1848. Retrieved from https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:12602767
Roberts, J., & David, M. (2019). The social media party: Fear of missing out (FoMO), social media intensity, connection, and well-being. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 36, 1–7. doi:10.1080/10447318.2019.1646517
Groenestein, E., Willemsen, L., van Koningsbruggen, G. M., & Kerkhof, P. (2024). Fear of missing out and social media use: A three-wave longitudinal study on the interplay with psychological need satisfaction and psychological well-being. New Media & Society, 0(0), 14614448241235935. doi:10.1177/14614448241235935
Disclaimer
The blog posts are for informational and educational purposes only. The posts should not be considered as any type of advice (medical, mental health, legal, and/or religious advice). All blog posts have been researched, written, and edited by the undergraduate students and alumni of the Lifespan Cognition Lab. As a teaching and research-based lab, we encourage all lab members to help make knowledge more accessible to all communities through these posts.
