The fear of missing out. I love the internet based short hands, but this one is a little different.
The general category of human fears has been well documented with little change over the years. The fear of snakes, spiders, heights, dark, broccoli, ….wait, the studies on broccoli are recent, and inconclusive. Basically it’s only been some recent media generated fears that have added to the list, like shark week or snakes on the plane.
So where did “the fear of missing out” come from? Clearly the net citizens resonant with this term, they type the acronym out fairly regularly. Sociologists have correctly labeled this as the Age of Information. That’s not only true because of the importance, but also because of the volume.
The amount of important information at your fingertips is multiplied a hundred times by the amount of useless data. Perhaps realizing that we don’t have adequate filters to select the important stuff from the unimportant, we have generated a new term, FOMO.
As with any fear, we see individuals respond in various ways to fear. We carefully look under seats and in loverheads for snakes, we keep a wary eye for shark fins. But how do we respond to FOMO?
I credit my wife with a new possibility. She thought that perhaps there is a “hoarding of experiences”, an over abundance of events in order to stave off the potential fear.
Hoarders of possessions are often addressing the fear of poverty. They don’t make a rational decision to invest in real estate or bonds, instead they collect multiple sugar bowls, or a half dozen ski parkas.
People with FOMO collect meetings, join book clubs, sign up with PTA, volunteer at church, attend political discussion groups, etc. None of these things are bad, and being active in several at a time should not cause alarm bells to ring. The question might arise when someone’s calendar is always full.
Are there days that are open? Is there down time when hobbies can allow relaxation? Or has even hobbies become somewhat manic?
So the question one should ask is “Have you become a HOE? A hoarder of experiences? Hmm, perhaps some further work is needed on the acronym.
