The fear of missing out, often shortened to “FOMO,” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on social media.”
During the modern landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantines that remain in place, it’s become increasingly more tempting to cave into temptation and meet up with friends, especially as they post about going out on social media.
In this situation, it’s best to be objective and look at the risks and consequences of caving into that type of peer pressure.
Mary Anne Nagy, Vice President for Student Life and Leadership Engagement, explained how quickly a seemingly safe situation can spiral out of control.
“Let’s say there’s an event at a house where you’ve got people who are coming that you don’t know,” Nagy said. “Friends are bringing friends from someplace else, and you think you’re having a small group but then 100 people show up, 50 of them you have no idea about.”
The best thing you can do to resist the temptation is separate yourself from the source of the temptation. If seeing people on their Snapchat or Instagram stories is making you feel left out, mute them from appearing on your feed. Work to establish better relationships with the people within arms reach who you completely trust, such as a family or roommates, and work towards finding ways to spend time with them.
You may be surprised over time to find out how much you enjoy spending time with those in your closest vicinity, and how completely unnecessary it is to surround yourself with strangers just for the sake of it. Resisting is hard, but the pay off of a clean bill of health will ultimately be worth it.
IMAGES TAKEN from Pexels.com
