Slashdot Mirror
We Can't Stop Checking the News Either. Welcome to the New FOMO (wired.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: Countless studies have shown that social-driven FOMO (fear of missing out) stems from a person's primitive desire to belong to a group, with each snap, tweet, or post a reminder of what separates you from them. This other type of FOMO, the all-news, all-the-time kind, is new enough that nobody has really studied it much, yet of the half-dozen experts in sociology, anthropology, economics, and neurology I spoke to, all quickly recognized what I was describing, and some even admitted to feeling it themselves. "We scroll through our Twitter feeds, not seeking anything specific, just monitoring them so we don't miss out on anything important," says Shyam Sundar, a communications researcher at Pennsylvania State University. This impulse could stem from the chemical hits our brains receive with each news hit, but it could also derive from a primitive behavioral instinct -- surveillance gratification-seeking, or the urge that drove our cave-dwelling ancestors to poke their heads out and check for predators. In times of perceived crisis, our brains cry out for information to help us survive. Maybe this alarm stems from steady hits of @realDonaldTrump. Maybe it's triggered by left-wing Resistance types. Or could it be #FakeNews, ISIS, guns, police violence, or street crime, all propagated through our social media bubbles with headlines that are written specifically to grab our attention? This feels like a processing problem. "One thing we learn about human beings: We're meaning-making machines," Kross says. And social mania may be ideal for mainlining breaking news, but it's not great at providing meaning and context.
>> "We scroll through our Twitter feeds, not seeking anything specific, just monitoring them so we don't miss out on anything important," says Shyam Sundar, a communications researcher
Seems like multiple levels of fail are in play here.
I have a deep, intense fear that I will fail to miss out on the news. This fear is usually validated by the weekly shitstorm on my FB feed. Also, when /. posts "current events" articles.
Seriously though, this is definitely only going to exist in certain circles. I shudder to identify them properly but I see them in the elevator constantly when they can't pull their nose out of their phone between floors.
We used to call these people AOL subscribers.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
It's fear of not looking while you idiots screw something up. The longer you go unsupervised, the bigger the damage.
"This impulse could stem from the chemical hits our brains receive with each news hit..."
Uh, news? That's a laugh. The only thing being passed around these days is bullshit, which the masses obviously love to puff, puff, pass.
"In times of perceived crisis, our brains cry out for information to help us survive."
Those of us still armed with brains and common sense are crying, because its become increasingly frustrating to find a needle of useful information in a haystack world full of bullshit.
The article is stumbling on to something that goes far beyond the latest news cycle. We're a tribal species, and until somewhat recently our survival depended on forming cohesive bonds with like minded individuals. In the past, that was our tribe; we would cleave to the opinion of the group in an effort to ensure our survival.
Those of you with a sharp eye might notice this leaves little room for independent thought or free will. You aren't wrong.
In modern times those behaviors still exist, but they're expressed differently. As our communication technology has advanced it has allowed us to form these tribal bonds with people who are otherwise physically distant, but because of the distance we do not get the constant feedback we'd otherwise get from an in-person association. The end result is an almost obsessive need to stalk friends and family online.
You'll note, danger doesn't really enter into it except as an amorphous "force" driving the need for socialization.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I was just dropping by to check for new stories.
Mostly I dig for science and tech news, the bleeding edge of human knowledge and engineering stuff (except I'm looking at the pop science reporting, not the actual research / studies).
I've learned to put it all aside for most of my day and relax. It's way too easy to waste your time looking for the next bit of interesting information and never find it.
The truth is that nothing (that I can do anything about) is going to happen on a time scale of days. If I read about something tomorrow even in a week... the delay is not going to affect my life, I'm not actually missing out on anything.
I actually gave up on watching or checking the news every five minutes when it went from 'These are the important things you must know!' to 'Here's what you should be outraged about today!'. I don't need to be told what I should or shouldn't be angry/disappointed/worried about, I'm a big boy and I'll make up my own mind on that. I just want to be told what's happening in the most neutral way possible, but that's not possible anymore it seems so I gave up. I'll listen to local news for a the highlights, but that's about it.
To be fair, I will pull out my phone and look at the screen to avoid any awkward conversations or pointless boring small talk (like on an elevator or waiting in line).
It's a great conversation killer/preventer.
My wife & I went camping this past weekend in southern Illinois to view the eclipse. The location where we were at had no service on our phones. No Facebook, no news, etc. I get the same thing in the area where I go hunting. It's actually very refreshing. I highly recommend it.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
But I wanted to post anyway.
The irony is I've never seen ads for a spell checker. :-)
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I wonder how much that problem is linked to overchoice ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ), the paralysis some feel when exposed to too many options. Mostly stemming from the fear of not picking the best option we could have.
We have so many ways to get so much news today, that it becomes impossible to follow all of it. So from all these choices, we have to pick the ones we read, taking the chance of missing out the important news for us.
Do anyone know if that link was studied?
First thing in the morning, every morning.
1. Did he start a nuclear war?
2. Did he resign?
3. Brush teeth.
I was so wondering where I was supposed to get to too! Evidently nowhere bigger than Detroit, MI with 900,000 some odd people.
300 missiles: So much heavy water how could we be so blind.
History has shown that with each new era of mass communications there is a new era of genocide that accompanies it. From the printing press to the telegraph to radio to TV to cell phones to the internet... these developments are mirrored by the genocides by Belgium against the Congo, by the United States against the Cherokee, by Turkey against Armenians, by Soviet Russia against the Ukraine & by Germany against Jews, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge atrocities, Rwanda (which was famously a radio-controlled purge)...
I'm afraid if I don't keep up with the news I may find out too late that intelligent people in America have been targetted by tweetstorm as the next victims.
Mostly in hopes that NK has launched nukes and I can just not bother to go in to work today.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Checking the news obsessively just leads to a greater obsession with doing same.
There's nothing wrong with having someone else tell you if there's something important.... And with all these people afraid of missing out there must be tons of people who are aware of the media's particular perspective!
I used to check Slashdot obsessively but then found myself stuck in a loop of doing just that, and didn't realize how much of it was pure obsession and not actual benefit/fun in any way until I stepped away. And it was actually getting me worked up, I would get too involved in conversations, and too anxious about bad news and everything terrible about the world, without being able to even do anything about it because I was busy refreshing pages.
Remember pre-internet (or at least pre-AOL and pre-Google)? Life was still fun, maybe more fun...
Twinstiq, game news
This phenomenon is real. In order to compensate, I have developed a fear of fear of missing out. Some might call me fomophobic.
100 REM PISS OFF CODE FASCISTS 200 GOTO 100
After all YOLO!
#DeleteFacebook
FOMO is a myth. The world is just too big. True Polymaths can't exist either for the same reason. If you learn to be an expert water surfer then chances are you are not going to be an expert hockey player and even if you are an expert water surfer, when you are surfing waves in one location, there are always going to be great waves you are missing out on somewhere in the world. It doesn't matter how smart you are, how skilled you are, or how much money you have you are constantly missing out on *WAY* more than you are experiencing. You are much better off to figure out what small domain makes you happy and spend your time there than burning out trying to take it all in.
It is a well-known fact that females prefer well-informed males for brief assignations. They may choose males with good jobs and lowered aggression for their long-term child-nearing needs, but for impromptu sexual encounters, they prefer males who keep up with what is happening in the world.
Only women and the well-informed males are aware of this fact.
For a time, I was constantly checking news updates on various websites. It became a time consuming activity for me.
I eventually solved the problem by replacing all that activity with reading books. It forced my mind to focus on one thing at a time. I am quite happy to ignore news stories entirely these days.
As a teenager, one is meant to learn self-reliance (avoiding and solving problems) and thus, that other people are selfish, lazy, horny and different. Constant social networking may mean less 'getting to know you' time in meat-space but it also means one doesn't experience the socially inadequate (or the charismatic criminal) making one realize that 'normal' doesn't exist and other people shouldn't automatically be a part of one's personal life.
Most of the posts on Facebook and friends don't inform us of life-threatening issues, or even relevant issues. Humans, as pack animals, are people-watchers: We need to meet other people and we need to perv on other people: Social networking allows people to 'meet', and with its click-bait headlines, triggers the basic social desire to perv.
I finally realized that no mater how much I cared about the world, no matter how angry I got about politics, no matter how much I raged for the environment, there was absolutely nothing to be gained by being plugged in 16 hours a day. Now I check the news maybe once a day, and live the best life I can, only paying attention to those in my immediate sphere of influence.
Living without the constant anxiety has improved my life immensely, and now I don't add to the stress of those around me by feeding into their own stress cycles.
*EYEROLL*
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I came to check news on slashdot. I will be right back in 2min.
There's an underlying snobbery about the term FOMO. The key question is what are you searching for? The summary describes blindly scanning the feed page for whatever someone else somewhere reported. I suppose there are people who do that. But there must be other people besides me who search for news they are interested in for a reason. I use the "search" box on Twitter every day, looking for news on, say, lithium battery fires. Sure, if I take an interest in a non-research news topic, like Nazis or Trump hate, I will scroll for that as well. But I'm usually bored or procrastinating when I do that. All the comments saying "stop using social media" seem like throwing away your cell phone because you got a spam call. Some folks look for more interesting info than others, I guess.
Gently reply
You're looking at the problem wrong.
I will admit that I've been sucked in by the trumpet's manipulations for the past 8 months. At this point the goner in chief no longer matters to me. I've had it with old news, reality TV and politics, all of which means no more donald kardashian, errr trump for me. That also means no more not-so-brightbart and Alex "helpful as herpes" Jones infowhores. My serenity level and available time just increased measurably.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
To be fair, I will pull out my phone and look at the screen to avoid any awkward conversations or pointless boring small talk (like on an elevator or waiting in line).
It's a great conversation killer/preventer.
sociopath
sspaTH/Submit
noun
a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.
Just another day in Paradise