Student Blog: Flatten the FOMO curve
This week, Kate, our second Vice Captain for 2021/2022, introduced a novel concept at our Principal’s Assembly. How about we focus on the positives in our lives and stop with the FOMO!
“I don’t know about you, but I am over COVID.
This is why, as one of your new Vice Captains, I wanted to speak about something that hopefully resonates with each and every one of you, and that I wish I had heard in Year 7. Not COVID, but a different, subtle, and equally pervasive type of illness. In fact, I have personally been struggling with this condition since I started Senior School. Let me take you to one Saturday night, a few months ago.
It’s 7pm. You open Instagram. Paul Dillon has just posted his weekly ‘water time’ collage. You scroll. You were looking forward to playing a board game with your family, re-watching Hamilton for the hundredth time, and then getting some sleep. Except now you’re not.
You are me. That odd restlessness that we’re experiencing, after feeling perfectly content, is the terrible affliction I’m talking about. A mixture of envy, exclusion, sadness, even self-loathing. This virus is FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out.
The origins of FOMO are a little difficult to pinpoint.
I cannot count the number of times that I have been told that as a a teenager, I’m in the throes of my ‘golden years’, the time of my life – I’m always being told, “Kate, high school, is one of the most unique, extraordinary, formative experiences of your life.”
This expectation is overwhelming, and quite frankly, unrealistic. In 2021, our favourite books, movies, TV shows and TikTok accounts present a distorted portrayal of teenagers’ lives, typically full of wild nights, passionate romances and long-lasting friendships. Obviously, that’s not to say these things are non-existent, but it’s important to recognise that they are not normal all the time. The less glamorous truth is, being a teenager can really suck. The explosion of mental health disorders prevalent among high school students are caused by a myriad of factors including stress, exams, lack of sleep, pressure to ‘fit in’, and so on.
In addition to all of this, we have social media, which as we know is practically inevitable.
It is because of those reasons, that cases of FOMO among teenagers rise exponentially every day.
As a result, we are all going to feel a bit excluded, a bit lonely and a bit lost at times.
So how do we flatten the curve? I hear you ask.
The answer lies within you. FOMO relies on you looking outward instead of inward. You’re more preoccupied with how other people are living their lives (or seem to be according to their highlight reel), than how you actually want to - the ways in which you gain energy, what makes you happy. When we’re so tuned into the ‘other’, which we perceive as ‘better’ or ‘normal’, we lose our authentic sense of self.
For me, reading Florence Given’s book Women Don’t Owe You Pretty was a real eye-opener (and as a sidenote, a book I can’t recommend enough). She says “worrying about what others think when you’re growing isn’t your priority. Just grow.”
I appreciate that this is much easier said than done. But by, for example, surrounding yourself with people who genuinely inspire you, unfollowing certain accounts on Instagram, enjoying your own company, and doing things that energise you, we can learn to be present. I don’t pretend to be cured of FOMO even now, but I’m trying and I’m practising, so when I do reach that bliss of self-assurance, I can truly live in the moment.
As long as you are happy, it does not matter what other people think. We must embrace who we are, not reject it. So, I implore you to fight your FOMO as I am, and, experience IOWMO instead (I-O-W-M-O) – I’m Ok With Missing Out.
Thank you.
Kate (Year 11)
Vice Captain 2021/2022