JOMO is a Beautiful Thing

One of the greatest weapons modern social platforms have against us is something called FOMO - the Fear of Missing Out. We are inherently social creatures and we want to belong to a group, and to do so we feel like we need to be aware of everything that is going on. We fear we’ll miss out on something important and will be left out of a social context because of that.

That instinct makes sense in an evolutionary context. Our ability to form groups and a society is what made us survive. But our ancient reptilian brain was never ready for the sheer amount of context we have access to on the internet. We can’t keep up, realistically. So that Fear turns into Anxiety.

If our brains can’t handle it, what can we do about it? Well, we can try to be rational.

How much of what you see in social media everyday is actually good for you? How much of it actually helps you build relationships with others? I don’t know about you, but to me it seems like the vast majority of it is actually harmful to both you individually and to your relationships.

There’s no shortage of people suffering from anxiety caused by seeing so many bad news all the time. And no shortage of stories of people saying they stopped talking to their relatives or friends because of something dumb someone posted online. Everyone is so angry all the time and there’s just no way of building a healthy relationship when you’re in that state.

If bad things are most of what you see, and that erodes both your trust in humanity and your personal relationships, then shouldn’t you be happy if you miss out on it?

The Joy of Missing Out

What if we try to exercise the opposite emotion when thinking about all that? I’ll give some personal examples.

Recently, in Brazil, there’s been a lot of public discussion around labor laws because the congress is discussing prohibiting making people work on a 6:1 schedule. There’s been so many awful, borderline criminal takes being posted online that it can truly make you lose all your hope in people (I do think most of them are rage baiting, saying something so absurd to make people engage more).

I’m not in any commercial social media platform, and only got exposed to some of the bad takes that burst out of their bubbles. My mind could definitely steer towards the thought that I’m missing out on that discussion, and I could be there to tell these people they’re stupid. But wait… those people are awful and are saying some awful things, and I’m missing out on that! I’m glad I’m missing out, because I really don’t wanna see it.

Even if you’re part of a bubble somewhere that aligns with your own thinking, sometimes it’s good to be able to identify when something’s not good for you too. After the US presidential elections, my Mastodon feed got overwhelmingly negative. I totally empathize with the feeling, but at the same time it was dragging my mood down, and there’s not really anything I could do about it. So I just… muted the topic and tuned down my usage of Mastodon. I chose to miss out on it and my brain was glad I did.

I recognize that being able to miss out and just turning off from news and social media like this is a privilege. My right to be myself is not under constant threat. A lot of the people I interact with can’t say the same, and staying ahead of the news or even just being able to vent is a necessity for them.

But, if you can, I highly recommend trying it out. You don’t have to stay on top of everything that’s happening. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. Keep some space in your mind for things you can learn from other people in an anger-free context. It’s much easier to understand their point of view and have healthy discussions without all that noise.