FOMO is when a student (or adult) experiences anxiety that people they are connected with are having a good time without them. It’s often prompted by posts seen on social media.

What is FOMO?

• FOMO stands for: Fear of Missing Out
• Akin to “digital peer pressure,” FOMO is an emotion that app developers exploit
• FOMO is particularly influential for teens who receive the bulk of their validation and self-worth from the approval of others
• Many apps are designed to create FOMO to encourage users to log in frequently so they can be served ads, videos, and more content that keeps them online longer

Why should parents care about FOMO?

Teens feel a constant pressure to be online and accessible

• FOMO can cause anxiety and/or depression in students AND adults
• Young drivers  are using their smartphones while driving because fear missing anything online, even at the risk of their safety on the road
• Students develop the feeling of  constant pressure to be online and accessible all the time
• FOMO is causing teens to stay up late, staring at their phone screens, which results in poor sleep quality

The SmartSocial.com team asked 11 experts for tips on how to help students avoid or manage FOMO.

1. Schedule technology breaks

Allie Gallinger, Speech-Language Pathologist & Owner, Express Yourself Speech

You cannot be social without social media in this day and age. Every student feels that they need to be on their devices at all hours of the day to be in constant communication with their friends. Without doing so, they feel like they might miss out or be left out of social interactions. Students are also able to see what everyone is doing at all hours of the day, which results in FOMO if they are not involved.

This can be detrimental to mental health. There is so much pressure to not only be on all of the platforms but also be active on them. Additionally, if a teen/tween sees their friends together and were not invited, this can be detrimental to their self-confidence and self-esteem. 

Parents should schedule technology breaks with their students by ensuring that they get off their devices and go do something else for a set period of time. Parents should also encourage their students to be open and honest with them about their social media use. Ensuring that the lines of communication are open can make a huge difference for everyone’s mental health.

2. Recognize FOMO as digital peer pressure

Josh Ochs, Founder, SmartSocial.com

Students don’t understand why they get the feeling that they constantly have to check their phones. Telling them to “put the phone down” or “do something else” doesn’t take away the addiction or peer pressure that social media has created in their brains.

Have continual conversations with students about what they see or are doing on social media and how it makes them feel. Students must learn the words to describe their feelings before they will understand where the feelings come from. It cannot be a one-and-done dialogue and must be an ongoing parent-to-student relationship to combat FOMO and screen time addiction.

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3. Parents should set the example of phone-free activities

Dr. Sabrina Romanoff, Lenox Hill Hospital

There is nothing novel about envying others and regretting choices and behaviors in teens. However, this phenomenon has magnified due to the rise of social media and in turn, the myriad of ways in which the spotlight is directed, through the lens of filters and photoshop, onto that which one does not have.

Mental health effects of FOMO include lower mood, feelings of loneliness, inadequacy, and reduced self-esteem. All of which can become entwined into a cycle of negative affect, isolation, and depression.

The grass is always greener on the other side. This is particularly true when that grass is seen through the distorted lens of social media. Parents can help by embracing JOMO (Joy Of Missing Out) with their students by espousing the feelings of autonomy and liberation that come from being unplugged and fully present. To encourage this, first, model, and then encourage phone-free activities like in-person socialization, reading, outdoor activities, physical exercise, and journaling.

4. Teach your students the negative effects of FOMO

Chris Norris, Founder/Managing Editor, SleepStandards.com

FOMO is developed because social media allows people to display what they are up to and that makes some teens feel that they are missing out on activities. FOMO generally affects one’s mental health so parents should be aware when their kids are displaying signs of depression, mood disorders, and loneliness to address them properly.

As a parent, you have to limit your kids’ exposure to social media. It would also help to let them know about the negative effects of FOMO. Let them learn how to detect if they’re experiencing it and help them to overcome it as well.

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5. Social media is an edited showreel never a reality

Jodie Cook, JC Social Media

Social media can create FOMO because it’s a live feed of what everyone you know (and don’t know) is doing. It creates a false impression that amazing things are happening to people you’re connected with, all the time.

If you follow 365 people and each of them posts one update per year, you would see a daily occurrence of someone else doing something fun. When left unquestioned, it can leave someone feeling like their life is boring in comparison.

To help, parents can remind their tweens and teens that social media is someone’s edited showreel, not their behind-the-scenes. They can also remind them that taking and posting pictures might take away from having actual fun - who wants to be posing all day? Parents can draw a distinction between someone documenting their life and living it - the latter of which is much better for happiness and mental health.

6. Establish rules for where and when devices are not welcome

Jessica Speer, Author

Social media feeds teenagers’ need to feel a connection and belonging with peers. It's where teens go to see who is doing what, what is in or out, the latest memes, and basically to stay in the know. When teens take time away from social media, they begin to feel out of the loop and disconnected.

Many studies have been done on the impact of social media and teens and the results are mixed. One area that is consistently a cause for concern is displacement, or what other important activities are being replaced by time spent on social media. According to a recent report by the North Carolina Medical Journal, social media negatively impacts the quality of a teen's sleep.

This report shares that prior work has reliably demonstrated a link between mobile screen time before bed and a range of poorer sleep outcomes, including shorter sleep duration, poor sleep quality, and daytime sleepiness. Notably, 40% of adolescents report that they use a mobile device within five minutes before going to sleep, and 36% report waking up to check their device at least once during the night. Thus, the impact of social media on sleep quality remains a primary risk for subsequent mental health concerns among youth and is an important area for future study.

Parents can help by establishing rules for screens at home, such as no devices during meals and no devices in bedrooms after a certain time in the evenings so sleep is not disrupted. When parents model the phone behaviors they wish to see, it helps to establish credibility. Ideally, all devices are powered down and put in a central charging location at night. 

7. Don’t let the comparison theory play out in your student’s life

Alessandra Kessler, Certified Holistic Health Coach, Healthy Body Healthy Mind

FOMO traces back to the social comparison theory. This theory states that people evaluate their social worth and value by comparing themselves to others negatively or positively. 

Similarly, social media contributes to FOMO for tweens and teens as they are exposed to a larger audience there and the tendency to compare their value and worth with others becomes much larger.

FOMO is a real thing and can contribute to worsening your student’s mental health, which may not be in the best place already. It tends to make a student doubt their self-worth, fall prey to an inferiority complex, social anxiety, reduced self-esteem, and mood swings. Moreover, FOMO can also cause teenagers or young adults to feel lonely.

Parents can help their teens or young adults overcome FOMO with the following few tips:

1. Understand your teen’s situation rather than invalidating their feelings by saying that things will get better in the future or that a certain event isn’t important
2. Help your teen find offline activities that they can engage in, to keep them busy such as going to the gym, camping, movie night with friends, etc.
3. Help your teen understand the perspective that people and their lives are not how they show it on social media. They might be struggling and living an unhappy life from within but would show otherwise in front of others just for the sake of likes

8. Set the same rules for both adults and students

Tatiana Gavrilina, Content Marketing Writer, DDI Development

If a healthy adult has the ability to think critically and protect themselves from such a phenomenon as FOMO, the situation with teenagers is more complicated. Their unformed state of mind gets used to the fact that the information on the question of interest is not stable - it can be updated every half hour. This is destructive, there is a feeling of instability and anxiety.

How to avoid FOMO impacts on teenagers:

1. Parents can spend more time with their students: play, communicate, work together at home
2. Set the same rules for both adults and students to use the Internet. For example, only 2 hours of social media/TV/video games a day applies to everyone 
3. Spend more time outdoors: walk with the dog, plant trees, take care of flowers, draw pictures in the park
   

Social networks are just a tool for receiving and spreading information, which, however, gives very quick results and makes people dependent on them.

9. Remind your student that social media is a skewed version of reality

Courtney Conley, Expanding Horizons Counseling and Wellness

Being connected 24/7 creates the illusion that everyone’s life is better than ours. What people post is often a skewed version of reality that presents the fun, happy, and momentous side of life. This creates the false perception that everyone is always doing something cool or fun and teens want to be a part of it. 

‍Teens can start to feel discontent and experience unhappiness and low self-esteem as they compare their life to what they see portrayed on social media. ‍

对于担心遗漏某些东西的青少年来说，焦虑是另一个问题。 父母可以通过教育青少年了解现实而不是人们在社交媒体上描绘的内容来提供帮助。 家长可以跟踪手机和应用程序的使用情况，并通过奖励创建有趣的挑战以减少使用量。最重要的是，家长可以调整学生的情绪，寻找抑郁和焦虑的迹象，并在需要时为青少年寻求帮助。

10。帮助您的学生树立人生目标，建立他们对自己的身份的信心

杰西卡·福尔图纳托，注册心理学家， 选择疗法

社交媒体可以诱发FOMO，因为它的设计很诱人，可以为用户提供持续的连接、即时反馈和自我宣传的平台，所有这些都是在公共论坛上进行的。用户不仅可以访问无穷无尽的内容，还可以访问提倡完美、肤浅、受欢迎程度、一致性和外部验证的在线世界。青少年和青少年每天花费数小时发帖、评论和精心打造自己的在线角色（通常是解雇或压制自己的真实自我），以达到规定的标准并阻止可怕的FOMO。

不幸的是，通过努力避免FOMO带来的痛苦和不适，这些用户有可能养成强迫性的社交媒体习惯，从而导致身份发展、信心和自尊心问题、抑郁和孤独感。 家长必须了解学生的长处和脆弱性以及他们如何使用社交媒体。

更重要的是，父母需要讨论过度参与社交媒体的风险，并帮助孩子认识社交媒体和FOMO如何影响他们所感受到的痛苦。这有助于验证我们年轻人的经历和挣扎，同时提供有关健康发展的教育，并通过现实生活中的经历为建立信心和自尊提供大量机会。FOMO的最佳保护措施是帮助我们的学生在现实世界中创造充满活力和充实的生活，让他们对自己的身份充满活力和信心。

11。父母应该帮助选择家人消费的内容

Digital Next 营销经理史蒂芬·洛德

没有哪个青少年愿意成为 “奇怪的人”。

在心理健康和社交媒体方面，两者之间存在明显的差异。 良好的心理健康和大量的社交媒体消费不能混为一谈。

因此，对于父母来说，无论涉及多少踢球和尖叫，都应该密切关注家人正在消费的内容。在社交媒体上消费内容是可以的，但你也应该向学生介绍其他媒体来源。否则，社交媒体将培育出一个思想极其单一或容易被说服的未来成年人。

结论

FOMO既可以影响青少年，也可以影响成人，但是教导学生如何处理这些感受并谈论这些感受是关键。在社交媒体使用和屏幕时间界限方面，家长应始终从树立榜样开始。

使用这些技巧，您一家人可以做哪些线下爱好？你的孩子可以开始做什么激情项目并变成他们的目标？务必教育您的孩子了解社交媒体是如何投射虚假叙事的，不要过多地解读他们的FOMO，因为社交媒体始终只是精彩片段，而不是现实。