It would appear that ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO for short) is raging out of control in our societies. There has been a lot of discussion about the way this is fueled by social media, but less discussion about the way it is fueled by advertising and rampant consumerism. The perfect gadget/smart phone is always just about to be released. The perfect couch or mattress is just one more hour of research away…
A few links
Can we break free from the fear of missing out? A well informed and interesting article on the problem.
How to buy the most sustainable couch ever A fantastic blog post about ‘chronic couch commitment phobia’.
Fighting FOMO I particularly liked this passage:
Do not mistake the onscreen gallery of glee for a wonderful real life that is somehow passing you by. The human experience depicted by the media is never the whole truth — and often an outright lie.
The whole truth is that most of us spend enormous portions of our time looking for our car keys while suspecting there’s something biochemically wrong with us. The whole truth is that today, plenty of us will spend hours trying unsuccessfully to muster the energy to bathe — hours that will be memorialized in neither pictures nor words. The whole truth is that if you could trade places with the people who give you the most raging cases of FOMO, you’d probably find out they’re really, really tired.
Research to be continued on this topic…
Refracted Input 