It isn’t easy to be unique. Everyone wants to be unique but doesn’t want to be left out either. We tend to jump on ban wagons at every stage in our lives. Right from school where, as kids, we jump into a bus to be with our friends and enjoy the ride in unison but with the rest. So much so, that it’s an activity we look forward to with eagerness without which life as a student would be incomplete. And then, there’re school classes where we ‘study’ with the rest and then sports like Football, Cricket, etc., mostly team based and group activities. Why, even tuition classes and coaching sessions involve dealing with others.
If there’s something friends have, as a trend, you must have it too and you move heaven and earth to get it. You blackmail your parents, throw a tantrum even put up your best behaviour only to get what the rest have and ensure you aren’t left out. There’s peer pressure and it’s more than real. It’s here that the Fear Of Missing Out, FOMO as is popularly known, begins to manifest itself. So, as a tolerated pattern, you’ve got cakes made to help you fit in; event created to generate group activities; prizes which are to be fought for by lots and careers that are commonly aspired by peer groups.
FOMO dictates life decision
And then, you grow into a teen and move to college where FOMO continues to affect you deeply in all phases of life; whether it’s finding a love interest or working towards a much-sought- after career or generally earning a popularity that most seek. This goes on to grow into an integral part of your very being at work and in adult life where you seek validation from friends, colleagues, families and partners as a rule.
Over the last two decades, technology has crept into our lives with an innocuous stealth. Right from the seemingly innocent SMS that transformed into MMS and then mushroomed sporadically into Social Media with its multifarious platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok and others, technology has become an integral part of everyone’s lives, whether they like it or not.
As the element of choice is conspicuous by its absence, it’s FOMO that rules the roost. Why, the number of followers play a direct role in the World Wide Web followers deciding whether you are famous or not. And, it’s just by the number of followers that one’s success is measured. Not whether the followers, in fact, actually act upon your works or words; it’s just their presence in numbers indicated by your list of ‘followers’ or ‘likes’ to a post or view that matters.
Technology evolves with FOMO
Technology that advanced from a personalised DOS system to email and then Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and the range of interactive social media has, very strategically, utilised this very Fear Of Missing Out among individuals to supplement numbers and further viewership and, concurrently, digital footfalls and revenue.
That FOMO is entirely psychological and not tangible or real yet affects lives in the real world is deplorable. Colossal revenue models operate only on FOMO to further their fiscal interests and businesses. Ethics take a complete backseat in industries thriving on FOMO-driven individuals who refuse to counter it with logic. The entire media industry operates on FOMO and so does the Social Media industry which milks the sentiment every micro-second to boost ‘viewership’ and ‘numbers’ which again, inadvertently, affect revenue models based entirely on this.
FOMO and reality
Let us examine how FOMO affects the media and reality today as opposed to the past. In the past, each time something was said, written about or countered in the media, it were the pertinent ‘experts’ with years of relevant experience who would offer their inputs on the subject on platforms that were limited and hence creditable to an extent. Their views, substantiated with informed takes, would be taken with utmost seriousness by the public at large whose opinions would be formed but only on basis of ‘informed views’.
Over the years and the proliferation of private television channels over and above the good old Doordarshan led to a sea of opinions and views on issues local, national and international, that lacked ‘information’ and bordered mostly on ‘uninformed’ views even off-the-cuff and, sometimes, likely to incite the public or hurt sentiments even individual interests. And, as the media went on to turn digital and news amalgamating with views to form opinions that ‘mattered’ even despite their dearth in credibility, FOMO turned into a virtual foe.
Everyone who wants to arrive has to either follow a leader with millions of followers or be out of the race. Now, whether those millions of followers were created by digital trickery, software intervention or an algorithm ploy didn’t matter. What mattered was that the numbers were there and grew.
So, to boost numbers in this game mattered the most and players knew what it took that mattered. It could be photographs bordering on the bold even worse, comments that were politically driven, insinuating the worst even instigating just to procure a response and concurrent ‘hits’ to qualify as ‘views’ never mind the authenticity, credibility or intent. What mattered were the hits, views or friends never mind how one got them. And FOMO ensured everyone joins the bandwagon, even if it means climbing over each other’s toes, shoulders even heads just to make sure that they make the mark.
FOMO is psychological yet affects lives in the real world
The right formula
Technology has tapped upon the right formula to rope in humans struck with FOMO and they’re only sticking to it, never mind the outcome or risks. The risks are real and tangible. A remark or view must generate a response…any response. Nine times out of ten, it’s a response that’s adverse to the comment even angry or incensed but that doesn’t matter.
In the eyes of the law, such a comment or remark may be struck down or pulled up by law following a complaint. But, who will complain and how often does one do it. It isn’t bad enough that there aren’t processes in place, effective and not just synthetic offerings by way of disclaimers and warnings, what’s worse is that the entire technology is aimed to thrive on this.
In the absence of provocation, the entire industry will collapse. It’s the new normal and any opposition to it is like being left out. FOMO only ensures that ethics, law and morality aside, what matters is making a mark by jumping and clinging onto the bandwagon. After all, that’s the only way to move ahead in these times.
It isn’t uncommon to find something absolutely ribald, provocative or inflammatory on technology platforms that provide for news, views, comments, opinions and or intellectual property to online viewers consuming the same on phones, tablets, computers, laptops and you-name-it.
Actually it’s fodder for their very existence. Intellectual property is created only to titillate, derive responses, drive sentiments and then…disappear only to give way to a fresh lot of intellectual property that does the same, even better…before disappearing. FOMO drives individuals to leap into situations without any application of mind as individuals have now adopted collective minds and behave only as mobs with a mentality that completely lacks reason.