I have vivid memories of my first horror movie.
It was Friday the 13th Part III. Horror aficionados will remember it as the one where Jason first puts on the hockey mask that became his signature slasher look
I was in third or fourth grade, and I remember watching it with my brother, stepbrother and stepsister back in the early days of HBO. Completely freaked out, I had pulled a blanket over my head. I watched through a hole in the blanket as Jason macheted one hapless teen after another. It inspired many a nightmare of me running for my life. I also remember getting nervous anytime we drove by a country lake, because Crystal Lake is where Jason did his grisly dirty work.
’Tis the season for fright, with Halloween here again, but as a parent today of an 11-year-old, I can’t imagine for a second her watching a movie like that. For that matter, I wouldn’t even let my 15-year-old watch it.
But at the same time, cartoonish violence and ridiculous jump scares don’t create the fear I should be most worried about for my girls at this stage in their lives. The fear I should probably, well, fear most is created every day by the phones they seem to barely put down. It’s the fear of missing out – FOMO.
FOMO can be defined quite simply as the worry we feel when we’re missing an event or social occasion that we’d enjoy. It isn’t a new notion. When we were all kids – back when I was shaking nervously under that blanket – we did worry about what others might be doing without us. We worried who was hanging out together after school, who was going to what party, who was sleeping over at what house this weekend.
But the dynamic feels bigger and more pervasive than it did back then. We have our iPhones to thank for that. I wouldn’t think of letting my kids watch a slasher flick at their age. Yet I’ve let them tether themselves to devices that pile on fear of a different and perhaps more troubling kind – fear that they don’t have as many friends as they’d like to, that they don’t measure up to their peers or that they don’t “fit in” socially with the rest of their kid community.
In some ways, FOMO feels as inevitable as Jason’s victims making bad decisions. It’s going to be there for our kids, to some degree, no matter what we do. We’ve had to talk our daughters through many mini heartbreaks because one friend or another made plans without them or because they weren’t included in a group outing when they really wanted to go.
It’s also impossible to put the toothpaste back in the tube when it comes to their cellphones. We can only hold out for so long on getting them phones when it’s the primary way their friends communicate and entertain themselves. And once they have the phone, we can’t keep them off TicTok, Instagram and Snapchat until they graduate from high school. It just doesn’t feel realistic.
But the fact is, it creates FOMO on steroids compared to when we were kids. Every moment is captured, and everybody knows about it. Knows who was there and who wasn’t. New moments are purposefully created and curated to make a show of it all – to create pictures of a blissfully ideal life that in most cases only fleetingly reflects reality. Left out and left behind are emotions only a swipe or tap or like or share away.
As kids get older, the effects of FOMO often go beyond the emotional, creating psychological and even physical impacts that all parents should consider, understand and try as much as possible to manage. As American Addiction Centers put it so well:
Perhaps because of its association with social media, teenagers and adolescents seem to struggle with higher levels of FOMO than the general population, especially young males. The low self-esteem associated with social media use, also puts teens at increased risk of abusing drugs and alcohol. Related to this, those who struggle with a higher degree of FOMO are more likely to experience depressed mood.
Teens with FOMO may also turn to drug and alcohol use as a way of not missing out on the activities they see on social media. Perhaps they have friends who post photos from parties where drugs and alcohol are available, or they may follow celebrities who are photographed drinking or using drugs. This can encourage adolescents to engage in similar behaviors.
A 2015 study published in the Annals of Neuroscience and Psychology analyzed the relationship between FOMO and alcohol consumption in college students. It showed that kids with higher levels of FOMO, as measured by a survey called the Fear of Missing Out Scale, had higher levels of negative alcohol-related consequences such as feeling badly about oneself, saying something embarrassing and doing something they regretted later. Higher FOMO was also associated with consuming a higher quantity of drinks per session.
But what can parents do? FOMO and social media use feel like a fait accompli. It’s going to happen no matter what. So how do we lessen the blow, especially when it becomes to the dangerous behaviors that can result from underage substance use?
First, we can pay attention. We can pay attention to how much time our kids spend on social media and monitor their reactions to what they’re seeing.
We can also set phone boundaries. Time limits, always knowing your child’s unlock passcode (and taking the phone away if they don’t share it), and discouraging phone use in private spaces like bedrooms have helped our family.
We can challenge assumptions. Many high schoolers will say they fear they’re missing out on the basement and backyard drinking parties where “everybody” is. I put “everybody” in quotes, because it’s a generalization as flimsy as a red Solo cup.
According to 2017 research by the Centers for Disease Control, three in 10 high schoolers drank in the last 30 days. More recent studies show similar percentages. And other studies show a decline in teen drinking from a decade before.
Yes, it’s unfortunate that any kids drink. But what those numbers also show is seven out of 10 kids do not drink. The perception that you need to drink to fit in doesn’t match the reality of the behavior.
Finally, and most importantly, we can communicate. Asking the right questions, not settling for generic answers, and discussing social anxieties openly and honestly – including from our own lives and experiences – can make a huge difference.
In other words, to confront the fear of missing out, the last thing we parents should do is hide under a blanket.