Transcriber: Patricia Álvarez Reviewer: shan hu
Imagine...
You're curled up in bed. Book, open in your hands.
Enveloped in your warm blankets.
You're so excited about it
because you've had a long week of work, and errands, and activities
and, if we are being honest,
you really couldn't be more excited than to be in your bed.
Then, as you turn the page, a friend texts you a video.
And as soon as you press that regrettable finger to the play button,
your phone erupts with music
and as the beat drops and the camera pans over the crowd,
you see all your best friends at a packed house party
having the time of their lives!
And a massive wave of FOMO hits you.
(Laughter)
Whereas just a couple of moments before you were blissfully happy in your bed,
now, you feel so inadequate.
Sitting in your bed at 10pm, on a Friday night in your pyjamas.
(Laughter)
FOMO is an acronym for the Fear Of Missing Out.
It's not a new human experience,
however today's society has more channels than ever
that foster this fear.
But it doesn't have to be a bad thing.
When we understand it and recognize it, it can guide us.
Everyone here can relate to being at dinner with family or friends
and being distracted because your phone is vibrating in your pocket
with texts or phone calls.
Or even worse.
Having a moment where you sit in complete and terribly uncomfortable silence
as everyone around the table has their heads down, texting.
So the fear of missing out keeps us from connecting with people
but it does so much more than just that.
Think about a day where from the moment you set foot out of bed
you were a blur of action, clothes on, granola for the road,
rush between meetings and meetings between phone calls
and finally you decided to get a quick coffee break to rest;
but even when we try to rest, we struggle with it.
We feel like we need to be doing something
or talking to someone or checking our phone.
We are definitely struggling
to look like we are sitting at a table drinking our coffee alone.
So the fear of missing out not only disconnects us from people
but it keeps us from enjoying the present moment.
And the last effect of the fear of missing out
is that impedes us from achieving our goals.
At some point all of us have procrastinated on a goal.
Those times where we know we need to be doing something
to make a deadline but instead we decide to do something else,
expediently, like hang out with friends and watch the game.
And invariably in one of those nights, we have a moment
where we realize we've made a terrible mistake.
And that moment generally goes something like this.
You're hanging out with your friends, you're having a good time,
you remember that you have a deadline fast approaching... and boom!
You have a huge pit of stress in your stomach
and after that you can't enjoy anything.
All you can think about are the things that you should've been doing,
the things that you should be doing,
and the terrible thought of failure.
From that point on, you're distracted from your friends,
you can't enjoy where you are
and you are underachieving your goals.
And these effects are not new.
Just like Drake recoined Carpe Diem with his terrible acronym YOLO,
(Laughter)
FOMO is a new word for something that has afflicted humans forever.
For instance, the Romans suffered from chronic FOMO,
and perhaps none suffered more than Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Cicero had such bad FOMO that he was horrified of missing out
anytime that he left the capital
and since he didn't have something like Facebook to turn to...
(Laughter)
... he needed to find a new way to deal with his FOMO.
So he arranged for letters to be sent from the capital
that chronicled everything from the political happenings
to, probably more importantly, juicy gossip and scandals.
And the fear of missing out becomes even more interesting
in the context of modern research.
In 1938 a study known as the Harvard Grant study,
which is one of the most comprehensive studies ever done
on the causes of happiness, began charting the physical and emotional health
of 250 undergraduate men
and they tracked it through all developmental phases.
Through young adulthood, middle adulthood, and maturity.
And after 75 years, the study found that across the board,
keys to being happy are connection and accomplishment.
And if we think about the effects of the fear of missing out,
it keeps us from connecting and accomplishing.
So we need to do something about it.
But first, we need to talk about the role that technology plays in all of this.
Don't get me wrong. Connecting technology is incredible.
We have the ability to connect with friends
instantaneously and from around the world.
But there is a limit on how much we can connect
and when we overconnect we feel the strain.
Studies show that overuse of social media and cellphones
is correlated to higher anxiety and lower performance.
But this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
A perceived obligation to have
a complete and constantly updated social media representation of ourselves
can cause stress.
And texts from friends, a couple missed calls from coworkers,
e-mails from everyone and a couple of voicemails from people
like my mum who don't understand that no one leaves voicemails anymore...
(Laughter)
... can cause stress.
But that being said, this is pretty easy to fix.
If you are committed to being at dinner with friends,
working on a project, somebody trying to rest,
turn off distracting technologies.
And doing this will help but it won't solve the problem
because the technology is not the reason why we experience our fear of missing out.
It's just a medium for it.
We also use technology to cope.
We do things like change our profile picture on Facebook,
hoping that it gets a lot of likes.
Or text distant friends saying: Hey, how've you been?
I haven't seen you in forever.
Knowing how badly we need the response.
And don't get me wrong.
It's alright to feel good if your profile picture
gets over a hundred likes.
In fact, that's awesome. It must have been a cool picture.
(Laughter)
But that's only going to make you briefly feel better
because it doesn't actually address the source of our fear of missing out.
The reason that we experience fear of missing out
is our struggle to answer essential questions.
Will I be remembered?
Will anything I accomplish be important to anyone?
Am I loved?
Does my family love me?
Do my friends love me?
Am I worth loving?
Or summarized into one terribly simple question:
Am I significant?
And sometimes we just don't know the answer to that question.
Am I significant?
That is the cause of our fear of missing out.
But I have great news.
We will never be able to overcome our fear of missing out.
(Laughter)
It's great news. It really is.
It's not possible to get over this essential human fear.
And yes, this is great news.
The fear of missing out compels us to love better,
to achieve greater and to live more.
The question that we should not be asking
is how can I overcome my fear of missing out.
The question that we need to ask ourselves is what is my fear telling me?
And when we understand the reason for why we are experiencing our fear
it can guide us to a more fulfilling life.
The fear of missing out is our natural alarm
and we can use it to make better decisions.
Understand your fear of missing out and do what makes you happy.
Thank you.
(Applause)