A recent advertising agency study reveals that Social Media is doing more than helping people connect, it’s also heightening the feeling of being left out. Advertising agencies and marketers have long been aware of the keeping up with the Joneses phenomenon that emerged after WWII when shiny new cars and TVs were the technological status symbols. Now, keeping up with the Joneses means doing what your friends are doing. This is a trend that some industry analysts are calling the Fear of Missing Out or FOMO.
For instance, 60% of teens 13-17 say that when they feel bad whenever they discover via Twitter or Facebook that a friend is doing something they are not. The number is even higher for Millennials 18-33. The boomers are feeling left out as well, at about 18% reporting this lonesome sensation. It’s a perfect storm of low self-esteem, consumerism, cliquishness and the Internet. Mix in the pubescent angst of breaking away and trying to become your own individual. Then compound that with the American competitive spirit. After all, we love to win and we hate to lose. And we really hate it when the winner rubs our nose in our defeat. Like when your friend tweets you that he’s now the reigning Mayor of some trendy Dallas bar all on account of this thing called Foursquare.
Social Media does create these social anxieties, it just makes them more pronounced. And it appears they are more pronounced in men than in women. A possible explanation for this is the fact that women and men view social interaction differently. Women use it to move closer to friends: share baby photos, recipes, book reviews, etc. Men use it to one-up their buddies: trash talking, my team won, your candidate is a pervert, I’m Mayor of Friday’s and you’re not.
The study is fascinating but one thing is for sure. Social Media is not the root of this fear of missing out. To get to the bottom of that, years of therapy may be in order.
