Parents all over the world can actually be heard sighing in satisfaction when news stories claim that accessing social media is safe. Such headlines, though, might be oversimplified. Studies paint a more complex picture of youth, social media, and anxiety. According to a recent study, FOMO, or the fear of missing out, is related to whether or not youth believe using social media reduces or increases their anxiety. Anxiety levels have increased recently, and one study focused on FOMO to try to understand why.
FOMO is the fear of missing out on shared, good events. 50 percent of teenagers deal with it. With so much of life now taking place online, parents and teenagers must decide how many gadgets they should have, what rules should govern their use at home, which devices should host social media, and which apps they should use. The accessible apps are similar to the nutrients that a person can select to eat.
The study examined how social media use affected anxiety symptoms in 951 Australian teens attending six different schools.
According to the poll, using social media regularly was linked to higher levels of anxiety in 11% of youth, whilst using it less frequently was related to lower levels of worry. These kids claimed to have significant FOMO, exhibit negative reactions to learning about their friends’ activities, overhear discussions, and worry about being left out of activities. They might not have found common ground with healthy and non-harmful groups.
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These kids would not mind having their access to social media limited because they can clearly see how it impacts them, and some might decide to use it less as a result. Students who reported not being impacted by FOMO or 54% of respondents, displayed more severe anxiety symptoms after using less social media.
It’s possible that these kids rely on social media to interact with one another and to cope with common anxiety symptoms. These are the pupils who might raise a fuss if their use is limited. They may have lost sight of how to support themselves offline and are more prone to rely on comments and interaction from “friends” for approval.
According to the research, just 35% of students reported no correlation between their usage of social media often and complaints of anxiety. These pupils had a level of FOMO that may be considered typical and healthy. They desire a sense of community, but they are not driven by it, and they have, hopefully, balanced their “nutritional intake” of offline and online activities. According to Australian studies, kids’ use of social media is affected by their fear of missing out.
These results, however, contradict a more recent study that found no connection between Facebook use and mental health problems.
These studies garner media attention, yet they are at odds with many personal experiences, clinical psychologists’ treatment of young people, research conducted by Facebook workers, and results from numerous studies conducted throughout the globe. The restrictions on research may provide an explanation.
Funding, the maximum length of an article that may be published in a peer-reviewed journal, the various social media engagement techniques, and even the choices made while formulating research topics may place restrictions on researchers. These restrictions may cause research to have gaps, such as the well-known study on the connection between mental health and technology, which asked participants to remove time spent chatting with friends and relatives online when rating how frequently they used social media. The FOMO research didn’t examine sadness; it just examined anxiety symptoms.
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As a result, it was unable to make any judgments on probable associations between social media and depression. However, there are certain things we can learn from the FOMO study.
People might need to first evaluate how they fall into the study’s categorizations in order to better life with technology. People who belong to the 35% of people for whom there is no connection between worry and social media usage can carry on as usual.
People in the larger group of responders (54%) who might experience a mild anxiety attack when unable to access social media should perform a tech health check. They can be using technology to just escape worries or they may be seeking reassurance to deal with everyday worries. When worries reemerge at night, this lesser resilience can cause difficulty falling asleep. One of the main issues with mental health brought on by inappropriate technology use is sleep deprivation.
There is a need for change, but it will take a concerted effort for individuals who identify with the 11 percent of people who fall into the category of having too much FOMO. However acknowledging that FOMO is affecting someone’s sense of life satisfaction and social well-being is the first step.
