Something that I’ve been really interested in lately is why social media has such a large part in our lives, especially in those lives of people from my generation: the Millenials.

We have things like Facebook Addiction Disorder, which is a recognized problem with those who can not stay off of Facebook. They constantly update and post and tag as if they are desperate to put their lives out there. Look! See here! These are forty slightly different pictures of me that I took one right after the other! Then there are those afflicted with F.A.D who sit and stare and the computer screen pressing the refresh icon over and over again to see if anything new has been added to their feed. It’s not just Facebook either. It’s also Twitter and Instagram and Tumblr. We are constantly checking and adding, friending and following, and updating the world (or at least our followers or friends) on what we are doing every second of the day.

Lately, this phenomenon has been attributed to something called FOMO, or the Fear Of Missing Out. Essentially FOMO is exactly what it sounds like: anxiety created from seeing what everyone else around you is doing and instilling in you this sense of worry that you are somehow boring or uninteresting.

Now, I can relate to this on some level. I also log on to these social media sites and look at pictures that everyone is posting and think, “Wow, I’ve gotten nothing to share but a few new pictures of my cat.” Or I look at a person’s tweets and think, “They are always going out to parties with so many different people. I’ve got absolutely no friends compared to her.” However, I am still a little skeptical about this supposed fear that somehow I’m missing out on something that someone else who I don’t really care about is doing.

Instead, I think this obsession with social media sites and the constant checking and updating comes from a fear of being ordinary. Particularly within the Millenial Generation there is an immense amount of pressure that has been placed on these kids from the beginning of their lives that they have a constant fear of amounting to nothing special. We grew up in a time where it was expected that we would go to college and get degrees. However, the adults of our lives also placed on us this expectation to be someone important and successful. Whether that means being famous or making a lot of money or having a large and happy family, we Millenials have a lot to live up to.

This is where I believe the fear of being ordinary comes from. I think we are so obsessed with Facebook and Twitter and all these other social media sites because it is a way for us to get ourselves out there that is permanent and real and says, “I was here. I was somebody.” It is also a platform for commiseration. We can look at other people and feel better about ourselves by saying, “Oh guess who I saw was pregnant? Guess she’s not finishing college!” As if another person’s failure to complete some set goal somehow confirms the image we have of ourselves as being special in a crowd of millions.

Whether or not the fear of missing out or the fear of being ordinary is the reason for our Facebook addictions and Twitter obsessions is the fact is we are on them and they are changing the way we communicate and the way we perceive ourselves and others. It will be interesting to see how the generation after us handles this influx of information and whether they suffer the same fears.

~ by mhuey on February 11, 2013 . Tagged: Facebook addiction, fear of missing out, FOMO, millenials