Guest Blog: Dick Forbes: Do YOU Have FOMO?

Do YOU Have FOMO? 

 I came across a book recently by Sherry Turkle: Alone Together about people who fear they are missing out. Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that as technology becomes ever more pervasive, our moods and emotions and relationship to it becomes more intimate, granting it the power to influence decisions.
It is amazing to me that teens and adults text while driving, because the possibility of missing out of some connections or juicy gossip is more important than their own lives (and the lives of others). They interrupt one call to take another, because they don’t want to miss out. They check their Twitter stream, Facebook, or LinkedIn while on a date, at school, a wedding or even a funeral because something more interesting or entertaining just might be happening.
We call it a “connection” but it really isn’t because it is only a potentially different connection. It may be better, it may be worse — we just don’t know until we check.
We are so connected with one another through our Twitter streams and our Facebook that we can’t just be alone anymore. The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) — on some gossip, who just broke up with someone, or something that is happening on the spur of the moment  — is so intense, even when we do decide to disconnect for the day, we still connect just once more, just to make sure.
Like the old-school Crackberry addict, we’re now all in the grip of “FOMO addiction” ^* FOMO creates a minefield of anxiety, paranoid feelings and fear. You have to check every tweet or status update because you know it has something to do with you.
The truth is that there are few things so truly important in life, they can’t wait. Sure, I understand that there are circumstances when you have to check your text. Other than a real emergency, we are giving in to our FOMO!
Professor Turkle nails it, “In a way, there’s an immaturity to our relationship with technology,” she said. “It’s still evolving.”

Dick Forbes can be reached at 770-386-0608, or through www.ForbesCounseling.com