If ever a generation is in danger of it’s legacy being dictated by FOMO or the “Fear Of Missing Out,” it’s us. Drawing from personal example (so I don’t get on the “this post is not for me” high horse), FOMO is why I checked my email first thing this morning and also why I was tempted to look at my phone as I was staring into space while waiting for a haircut yesterday.
The haircut incident was illuminating – I had just read my feeds, locked my phone, and was staring into space. A minute into the space staring, I felt this itch to check my phone again – just to make sure there were no new feeds. I shut this impulse down and my mind whirred into why the impulse came through in the first place. “FOMO” – a voice shouted.
FOMO indeed. There’s always a new piece of news, a new interesting article, a new email, or a new something else. The only way I’ve found to effectively deal with FOMO is to have a thesis (big word, I know) or strong studied opinion on how you approach information consumption. In my case, my consumption thesis involves consuming headlines from a couple of news feeds (The NY Times, The Financial Times) with the occasional click through to the full article, interesting articles from Lifehacker, and a bunch of personal blogs of people I follow across different fields. Should I be subscribing to Techcrunch? Perhaps. But, it isn’t part of the current thesis.
The benefit of having this thesis is that you aren’t constantly trawling the web for new information. One good example of it’s application is that, one year ago, I decided that checking my Facebook feed would not be a part of my consumption habit (thanks to a combination of aversion to endless gossip and the lure of infinite scroll). So, I use Facebook for many things but I don’t get near the news feed. Similarly, I treat Twitter as a serendipitous source and feel no need to catch every tweet.
The thinking behind this approach is that the information we have available to us with relative ease is endless. What we need to know is not how to get the right information because Google has solved that problem. What we need to learn is how to turn off the information pipe and make the most of the water in the bucket and make sure we only get the kind of water we want Unlike past generations, we DO have the option of an information pipe that is turned on for 24 hours. But, as you can understand, we only need so much water in a day and the wasted, uncontrolled water flooding where we live can be infuriating.
Form a consumption thesis. Stick to it. You’ll fail a lot in the process. But, that’s just part of the process of learning how to avoid FOMO. And no, you’ll never conquer FOMO. It’s a bit like illness and evil – our job is just to keep it at bay and recover quickly when we succumb.
A Learning a Day 