Mental Health: FOMO (fear of missing out)

Fear of missing out or FOMO is the anxiety that one feels when an interesting event is taking place around them. FOMO originates itself from unhappiness with our current situation and its apparent inferiority to others.

Social media can deeply impact our perception of people's lives. On social media, people tend to only post the best moments of their lives instead of posting the moments that are uninteresting. The need to post our highlights is not necessarily negative, as it is understandable that people want to make our lives seem interesting and fun. The issue arises when we compare our current moment of boredom to the few moments of fun that others are enjoying; the feeling of sadness and jealousy causes our 'fear of missing out'.

There are several aspects that we do not see when on social media, which means that the behind the scenes are never visible to us. We see a couple of pictures and videos but that does not involve the parts that are less attractive to the eye. Everyone has days where they do not feel their best or do not live the most 'instagrammable' life but that's okay because our entire lives aren't meant to be a highlight reel.

"The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel."

- Steve Furtick

Illustration by pikisuperstar