Psychologists have a field day with Fomo

The acronym Fomo means ‘‘Fear of Missing Out’’. The term was coined in 2004 and featured in the Oxford English Dictionary for the first time in 2013. These days, Fomo crops up all over the place. In a sense, Fomo has always been with us in the form of ‘‘keeping up with the Joneses’’ but these days it has become something different – magnified by new technology.

We consult our mobile phones, scroll through online news feeds, blogs, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter, to make sure we’re not missing out on something.

In America, most iPhone users check their gizmos within five minutes of waking up, check again at meal times, and again as they go to bed.

Most people are comfortable with some form of Fomo but, for many, all news all the time means they’re interminably connected with what others are doing and develop feelings of anxiety, of selfdoubt, envy, and the long-term perception that they are not in the know.

They develop a sense of inadequacy as they compare their lives with the wealthy, with celebrities, sports heroes and fashionistas.

Some feel that they are missing out while everybody else is skiing in Aspen, cycling the Pyrenees, sailing the Aegean, or partying in SaintTropez.

Information overload has been with us for some time but Trump, Brexit, perpetual unpredictability, crises and anxiety, terrorism, war, global warming, fake news, and all the rest have made news processing more troublesome and burdensome.

Psychologists are having a field day with Fomo.

Some think it is driven by a person’s primitive desire to belong to a group. Other psychologists think every new item sparks a chemical hit on a pleasure spot in the brain.

Another theory is that Fomo is the same instinctive urge that drove our forbears to poke their heads out of their caves to check on dangers, threats and opportunities.

Only last week, a real estate spokesman claimed the Rotorua housing market is being ‘‘driven up by the Fomo factor’’.

Laugh out loud, as they say.