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!

Aren't Movies Our Teacher?

“We become what we behold” – A mesmerizing quote by an English poet William Blake puts in nutshell, the impact of observation on oneself. People are constantly being influenced by what they see and hear, thus, restructuring their thought process every passing moment. In this regard, movies as a part of the larger entertainment industry, including short films, dramas, tv shows, and web series, etc., significantly enrich one through their audio-visual lessons. So, a curious question emerging in my mind is – am I wrong calling them our teachers?

While movies might not seem like teachers in a traditional sense, their imprint on an individual’s personality is undeniable in this globalised-technocratic world order. Starting from mannerisms and behaviour to ambition and ideology, everything a person is and dreams of becoming, is influenced by these broadcasted entertainment contents.

Profound Influence of Cinema

The psychological growth of a child implies the growth of its personality, i.e. the child is adding and altering its characteristic features every moment, thus, shaping the child’s habits, attitude, and ultimately, its understanding of reality.

These characteristic features are essentially learned through observation of its surroundings, of which the broadcasted visual contents are an inevitable part of, in this modern age. When a child watches a movie, it absorbs content, encoding them into its brain. So, in turn, this stimulates an emotional response leading to happiness expressed through laughter, sadness through crying, fear through shivering, and so on. And frequent exposure to the same stimulus from the reel world will reinforce the responses, thus, creating and strengthening the attitude towards similar situations in the real world.

For example, when a child watches a horror movie portraying darkness as a “ghost” terrifying people, it will automatically start fearing darkness in real life situations too. Similarly, what is regarded as funny, what is considered sorrow, what becomes annoying, etc., are all moulded through cinematic experiences to a large extent, preparing one to real-world situations.

Just like the emotional system, these digital-visual contents help build one’s value system. Although one learns basic values from their physical environment by observing their parents, teachers, and peers, these digital visual contents further fortify one’s ethical attitude by bringing in confidence.

 In a drama, when the actions of the protagonist are glorified, those actions will be perceived as an ethical standard for the viewers. That is, if a righteous person is celebrated in a film, then consequently, people will strive to replicate such honesty in their personal life too.

Further, the impact of these entertainment contents is reflected in one’s community interactions, societal understanding, and national obligations. Many regional TV serials can make a person from a nuclear family understand the different relationship-dynamics of a joint family, or vice versa. Similarly, a movie like Sam Bahadur (2023) could evoke nationalism in audiences, reminding them of service obligations toward their nation.

From all the above, we may easily be convinced to conclude the motion picture as a righteous virtual teacher. But this can become a disastrous conclusion if the reality is not well-examined!

Cinema – a Risky Role Model

Though cinematic contents help to develop one’s emotional system, often, they tend to redefine basic emotional responses, confining them to a regressive stimulus. Take happiness for instance. Many movies have reshaped the definition of happiness by attaching it to money. While money is one of the means to attain a happy life, the cinema made it an end in itself, thus, glorifying even unethical means to attain it. So-deemed hit movies like Pushpa 2 (2024) reinforce this derogatory message of getting rich through any means to be happy, in a cinematic way.

In addition, these entertainment media further reinforce existing social evils instead of restructuring them. The huge box office response to the film like Animal (2023), reiterates how much the “toxic male heroism” is still valued in this modern India. A student bringing a gun to his school, masking sexual harassment as love, and un-questionable wrecking of law and order (no police in the film!) – if all these are referred to as “heroism,” then what kind of impact will it leave on our future generation is a question to ponder upon.

Another biggest issue is the way they make it sell! To elaborate, in the name of making the viewing experience pleasant, generally, these films or web series tend to add spice to their salad, called masala in films. These masalas historically revolved mainly around objectifying women, derogatory comments on disabled, and social shaming of transgenders. Besides dissolving the growing generations’ childness by pre-matured exposure to such degraded contents, it further desensitizes them, endangering tolerance in this diverse country.

Need of a Responsible Mentor

While the government regulates such virtual role models through legislation, censor board, etc., extensive control becomes a breach of the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression. But self-regulation and peoples’ influence would not be deemed so. In fact, the best reform is self-reform!

To begin with, the entertainment industry must take responsibility for making progressive content. While realistic portrayal is appreciated, it must not cross moral limits. Although cinema may mirror society, it also strongly influences it back. Hence, contents must be made keeping in mind the progressive values of the Indian culture and its heritage.

This cannot be possible if the peoples’ response is not garnered towards progressive film-making. In reality, cinematic industry which once made dramas to bring social revolution in our country reduced to mere “Masala Industry,” not because of the dearth of social issues to talk about, but due to peoples’ apathy towards such progressive contents. People must support movies and series that push forward-looking ideas, de-popularize toxic messages, condemn inappropriate portrayal, and must end piracy as profits are necessary for the sustenance of such progressive contents.

Since the entertainment industry holds a profound task of mentoring the younger generations in this “world in our palm” era, it must hold utmost integrity in its noble profession. While entertainment involves a mix of comedy, romance, action, horror, etc. they must not come at the cost of sensitivity, dignity, and humaneness. Although the role of movies as our teacher is undeniable, the extent to which it will be progressively inspiring will be determined by our response. Thus, the task of transforming this risky role model into a responsible teacher rests in our hands!

Let us begin our actions from here. Do you agree with my views? Do comment below and keep your freedom of expression alive!