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Fomo
Fear of missing out or FoMO is "a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent". This social angst is characterized by "a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing". While others defined FoMO as a fear of regret, which may lead to a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, profitable investment or other satisfying event. In other words, FoMO perpetuates the fear that we have made the wrong decision on how to spend our time, as "you can imagine how things could be different". From the perspective of psychological needs, FoMO results from low levels of psychological needs satisfaction. Self-determination theory (SDT) asserts that relatedness or connectedness with others is an influential psychological need that influences people's psychological health. Through this theoretical framework, FoMO can be perceived as a self-regulatory state which arises from situational or long-term lack of psychological needs satisfactions A study by Andrew Przybylski found that the FoMO condition was most common in those who had unsatisfied psychological needs such as wanting to be loved and respected. With the development of technology, people's social and communicative experiences have been expanded from face-to-face to online. On one hand, modern technologies (i.e., mobile phones, smartphones) and social networking services (i.e., Facebook, Twitter) provide a unique opportunity for people to be socially engaged with a reduced "cost of admission". On the other hand, mediated communication perpetuates an increased reliance on the Internet. A psychological dependence to being online could result in anxiety when one feels disconnected, thereby leading to a fear of missing out or even pathological Internet use. As a consequence, FoMO is perceived to have negative influences on people's psychological health and well-being, because it could contribute to people's negative mood and depressed feelings.
