Oh No! It's FOMO!

It seems like an dilemma tailor made for adolescence - that bumpy time when feeling included begins to really matter.

But, the truth is, this concern knows no age, gender, culture.  It is an equal opportunity ache.  It's FOMO: Fear of Missing Out.

You know, that hollow moment when you realize you are on the outside looking in.  Hearing about things you missed out on came via word of mouth before the digital age.  There was a certain sting but it was singular, infrequent.  Today, information is flowing so rapidly and fully toward us that things which would have been on the edges  of our world pop up like those tireless little critters in the carnival game Whack-A-Mole - quickly, unexpectedly.

Someone is dining at that new, hip restaurant? Someone is travelling fabulously? Someone is viewing a sunset, sunrise, their suntan?  Yep, FOMO rises up rapidly. 

FOMO's engine, fueled by the numbers, i.e. tweets, retweets, likes, rumbles along ceaselessly daring us to trend; to be on the up side of the seesaw, instead of the down. 

Rain Room - 2013

 I first heard the fear-based phrase when reading about an unusual art installation at New York's Museum of Modern Art last summer titled "Rain Room."  Described as an immersive environment, the exhibit was a room of falling water where visitors did not get wet.  Sensors detected where people were roaming and the rain paused just in those spots.

Weekend wait times in line lasted as long as nine hours (for non-members.) There were those who were singing in the rain with bragging rights, (seesaw up) vs. the detractors who noted it was just another fit of FOMO (seesaw down.)   "Rain Room" became a waiting room.  Yet, I sure wish I saw the exhibit!

Whether it is a teeny pang or full blown envy, FOMO tells us less about the doer and more about the receiver.  All envy exposes our insides. No one likes feeling their nose pressed up against the window, which is why I found "Rain Room's" intention to be precious. 

Technology limited the number of folks visiting the room at any one time.  But, the creators also strictly enforced a 'no time limit' on those inside the room.  Once you were in, you could stay as long as you liked.  This made for those insane wait times. 

Hannes Koch and Florian Ortkrass, members of the London based rAndom International studio (creators of the exhibit) addressed the wait time dilemma with aplomb. In a NYTimes article, Mr. Koch noted the “meditative” aspect of the piece," and "firmly opposed a mandatory time limit; and in the end, MoMA did not make any official changes."
       

“The queue should be part of the work; it should be a social experience,” Mr. Koch added.  My snarky side says, "tell that to the guy in line at the end of hour nine." 

Social media breeds social anxiety when FOMO awakens. How can we tame this rascally itch?  Laying off social media probably helps, though that is more avoidance than real work. The idiom "Live And Let Live" (LALL?) comes to mind.  It's not sexy but it has endured for a reason and it scrapes off the little green eyed barnacles fixed to our psyches. I say the opposite of FOMO is LALL.  

Yes, that feels a little better.

Link to 2013 NYTimes article re: Rain Room: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/arts/steamy-wait-before-a-walk-in-a-museums-rain.html