Social media is triggering ‘fear of missing out’ among the youth, precipitating depression and loneliness

In this tech-driven world, one need not be an astrologer nor calculate the position of stars to predict the fact that very soon, the World Health Organization (WHO) will consider declaring FOMO, a pandemic. And seeing the state of our ever-stressful, sleepless, screen-scrolling youth population, it feels like we are already having a silent outbreak of FOMO that is secretly snatching every country's demographic dividend, of its surging youthful energy.

This essay will shed light on this ongoing outbreak of FOMO, how it is silently slaughtering the youths, and what vaccine will be effective against it.

FOMO

To begin with, we must understand what FOMO is. It is an abbreviation of the fear of missing out. It simply means the feeling of being unseen, unheard, unrecognized, and underappreciated. When our youths feel FOMO, they feel like a cockroach in a bungalow, which is uninteresting, unwanted, and not welcome. Just like how this cockroach fears being poisoned and killed, the fear of getting unrecognized makes youths go into a permanent mode of insecurity. Thus, the silent erosion of their youthful contributions to the world is a manifestation of their hidden insecurities driven by the FOMO.

FOMO is more of a modern terminology for age-old human behavior. Even in the old times, people desired to be seen and heard. And such desire is a basic social need for humans. But back then, a small chit-chat with one's family, a cute-tiny gesture to neighbors, and brief tea time with friends were more than enough to satisfy that social need and prevent FOMO.

But with the world’s networks expanding more and more with urbanization and globalization, and AI adding to this mix, such simple mechanisms to satisfy social needs started rusting. The amount of effort required to prevent the influence of demons in FOMO goes proportional to the speed of globalization. And such efforts have taken a steep upright slope with the increasing imprints of social media.

Social media has successfully trapped our all-powerful, genie-like youths into lamp-like, itty-bitty, tiny living spaces on screens. Although it looks like in such tiny spaces, one is getting more connected with someone else miles away, the reality is that such people are already beginning to disconnect from their surrounding society. A mother's love-filled call for dinner feels like an abrupt interruption when chatting with a fake Facebook friend. WhatsApp emoji have already replaced one's real-life, meaningful & nuanced gestures as a means of communication. The TikTok world feels more real for our youths than the real world, which now feels more like a bad dream. And when such a virtual world fails to recognize them, their hopes fall, aspirations shatter, and confidence crumbles.

Virtual Expectations drive FOMO

The virtual world has raised the expectations of our youths to a different height so that anyone falling below is made to feel like a loser, seriously denting their self-esteem. While social media must be credited for increasing awareness among the public, it has also pushed carefully curated contents that can cash the cows in our youths. Its algorithms feed the viewers with not what they need, but what they like. In the case of youths, their desperate desires to be recognized is being weaponized by these codes.

One such desperate desire that gets weaponized is the “success mantra”. The social media has effectively rebranded success in terms of popularity, and further the achievement in terms of wealth and happiness in terms of appreciation. These rebranded values, despite becoming the new means for motivating youths, have also stripped the hard work of its foundational features like consistency, persistence, and patience and redecorated it with instantaneousness.

Truly, this instantaneousness is a disease. It shifts the focus from performing the duty to expecting results. Because of this, youths in every step towards their goal, crave for rewards to the extent that even a fraction of failure becomes extremely painful and creates a perception of as if the world has turned its back on them. This FOMO in turn transforms itself into anxiety and depression, drowning our youths in gloomy loneliness.

Further, expectations also dislike repetition. For example, a similar kind of content posted in SnapChat again will not guarantee as many likes or views as before. This means the validity of any virtual recipe is limited, and sustainability requires reinvention and renovation. When one fails to reinvent, the views fall, the likes disappear, and the re-share button becomes invisible. This crumbles the confidence in our youths, shaking their mental fortitude.

While some droop in depression, others take a wild turn to stay in the limelight. Many content creators turn toxic to stay relevant and capture a wider audience. Their contents start pivoting towards creating sensation through deep fakes and false news, and thus turning even an aspiring patriot into a petty propagandist.

Moreover, social media not only deprives young people of their time to build their relationships, the false narratives sold by these platforms through the dating apps, pornography, and fantasy videos create unrealistic expectations in real-life relationships. When such expectations are unmet, those real-life social relations fall apart, forcing the youths with FOMO syndrome to hide from life.

So, any vaccine against FOMO should address these false expectations to pivot our demographic dividend towards prosperity.

The Vaccine for FOMO

Youths must understand that false expectations induced harm is not an alien attack, but a self-inflicted injury. Thus, any prevention must begin with the self itself. One's self-esteem must not be measured by the yardstick seen in social media posts, but rather be realized through self-realization.

And in such a pursuit of self-discovery, the FOMO must be replaced by the JOMO – joy of missing out. As opposed to feeling alienated, one must see it as a chance to be with one’s self. Such solitary pursuit gives way to introspecting one’s thoughts, hidden feelings and talents. This also trains them to derive happiness and satisfaction from self rather than from other people’s reactions.

Another crucial step is to redefine success. It must be defined in terms of morality, service to others, and persistence. People must condemn dishonest money-making through these social media platforms and withdraw support from it. In contrast, selfless acts of service with persistence must be glorified and celebrated.

Finally, youths must learn to earn relationships through trust and further build it by investing time with their loved ones in real, not in reel. And family and friends help them in this process as this is the first place where one learns social behavior.

To summarize, the FOMO is just an old wine in a new bottle whose sales saw a new peak through social media networks. Its sales are attributed to virtually induced expectations, which have intoxicated our aspiring youths to the extent of pushing them into the realm of lonely depression, breaking their selves. Besides all the warnings, the only way out of this FOMO drink addiction is – self-recovery through self-discovery. 

Do you agree with my take? Do share your comments below!