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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.
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!
Who is this "we".
People with friends. So most Slashdotters are not affected.