1.6 FOMO: Fear of missing out

One of the reasons people don’t leave social media even when it is having a detrimental effect on them is that they have FOMO. This is a type of social anxiety that arises from the fear that you are missing out on something; whether it’s an event, a study group or social opportunity, a communication, or a potential connection, or just something cool and ethereal that you might like to see or be part of. Some people fear that they will become a lesser part of their community. So we want to be connected… ‘just in case’.

Ironically, the more connected we are, the more likely we may be to experience FOMO, because it is often caused by the posts we see on social media sites like Facebook leading us to believe our friends and acquaintances are having important or fun experiences in our absence. FOMO is associated with negative mental health outcomes such as depression (Elhai et al., 2016).

It is also important to realise that the information that you gain in these groups is of relative value to your studies as they are typically not university moderated they may contain information that is not reliable. If you are in any doubt about aspects of your studies there is usually someone at your institution whose job it is to support you. For example, many universities have academic writing support, or subject specific librarians.