Social media addicted teenagers are not the only people who experience the Fear of Missing Out also known as FoMO.
“FoMO is not an adolescent or young adult problem, necessarily. It’s really about individual differences, irrespective of age,” said Chris Barry, a WSU psychology professor and the lead author on the study.“We expected FoMO to be higher in younger age groups, particularly because of the tremendous amount of social development happening at those times, but that’s not what we found.”
“We’re not all equally prone to the Fear of Missing Out, but for those who are, social media can exacerbate it,” said Barry. “Social media allows you to witness what other people are doing and what’s going on in their lives. If there’s already concern about missing out, then there will be distress at seeing that on social media.”
For people experiencing this kind of distress, Barry suggested that it may be good to reduce social media use or cut it off altogether for a period of time.
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