by Ankit Mahajan
It is late night and you are still scrolling down
your phone keys to check the latest updates from your friends on FB. Next
morning, before picking up the morning newspaper, you are frantically checking
the same social networks for what you have missed out last night after going to
bed. If you have a routine quiet similar to this, you may be a victim of FOMO - Fear Of Missing Out disorder, the latest buzz in the clinical circles of
psychology.
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| FOMO (Photo Credit: Ann Larie Valentine) |
FOMOs are restless people who are unable to stay
away from their phones due to the temptation to constantly check for updates
from their social media friends. Relentlessly shooting status updates to their
friends on social networking sites is their major life cause.
As a student, FOMO can affect you in many ways. The
worst is the loss of concentration in the work because the mind always wanders
as to what one is missing out on the social media world. The phenomenon of FOMO
is directly linked to the frenzy about online social networking. Many people do
not feel comfortable to go blah-blah in public, but on these virtual spaces,
they define themselves very differently.
One of my early classmates, who rarely talked to
anyone in the class, was entirely different in her social media existence. It
was surprising to see that she had about 1000 friends on Facebook. More amazing
was her status updates and pictures on FB. She even shared her strange day to
day routines regularly on FB. But if you look around, she is not a rare case.
The take away is that social networking sites never show the real persona of an
individual.
On social networking sites, everybody wants to
show themselves in great moods, and in even greater looking pictures. Nobody
puts his/her dull images on these cybernetic social spaces. Dull pictures are
brushed up to keep up their good image among the friends. After all, number of
‘likes’ matter, right? No doubt that the social networking sites are the new
way of socializing but they are not the real way. Approaching a person on a
social networking site and in reality is totally different.
Social
networking sites often restrict the social interactions of a person to his or
her phone and phone friends. Such sites are a big hit, may be because we all
feel very lonely in our real social lives. In a way such networks may give you
a feel of togetherness, but it is important to control the involvement by
limiting the usage. Let’s not become victims of FOMO.
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