When I travelled back home during the winter break, I had been longing to slow down the rapid pace of life that characterizes my semesters, but winter break never offers enough time to rest. Those two weeks go by in the blink of an eye, and between celebrating Christmas, trying to find time for both family and friends from home, struggling to register for classes for the coming semester, and figuring out goals for the new year, rest is usually not a part of the schedule. This time, scheduling New Year’s plans sent me over the edge.
While my heart wanted to start 2025 with the person I love the most on Earth—my mom—my brain knew that missing my friend’s huge celebration was not an option. I didn’t want to skip the party and neglect the opportunity to see my peers during the few moments I would be back on the same continent. Plus, I was afraid to miss what was always expected to be “the best party of the year.” Anxiety quickly kicked in, making it hard to rationally evaluate the actual pros and cons of my options. As it turns out, that uncontrollable feeling has a name: FOMO—the fear of missing out.
This experience made me reflect on what I take into consideration when making choices. FOMO appeared to be at the core of every decision I made, leading me to wonder why this social concern is such a powerful force. The fear of missing out on an experience or losing an option has been especially prevalent in my life over the past few years—between majors and classes and preparing for future careers, students are constantly asked life-changing questions and expected to make choices. Some major life choices—like moving to Canada for university instead of staying in France—felt so simple, while some inconsequential decisions troubled me. It got me thinking: Why do I always feel like I’m about to make the wrong choice? How does the fear of missing out and leaving opportunities behind affect our development as young people? What can we do to help ourselves take back control of our decisions?
First, it’s important to consider how FOMO can both negatively influence decisions through social pressure, and override our better instincts. When considering whether to stay home and rest or go out with a bunch of people you may or may not know, I bet everyone has thought at least once that they had to go out or people would think they were weird or boring. In that sense, your life becomes dictated by the imagined expectations of others, and you end up not taking your own needs and desires into account.
While attending high school in France, I met a boarding student named Elisa Quelen. While I was going home every day after school, she spent the whole week there and only went home for the weekends, making our high school experiences very different. As a boarding school student—where peer pressure and group dynamics often run wild making it hard to say “no” when your entire class is going out—she highlighted that FOMO can even have an impact on your health.
“When you’re tired [and you still go out], you’re not respecting the signals your body is sending you,” she wrote.
Psychology offers an explanation for this. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, directly after our basic needs—including our physiological and safety needs that are crucial for survival—comes our need for love and belonging. No wonder, then, that we experience FOMO: Not attending events could mean the erosion of friendship ties and intimacy in the long run, undermining our basic survival needs. Kristina Tchalova, lecturer in McGill’s Department of Psychology, expanded on the potential evolutionary roots of FOMO in a written statement to The Tribune.
“From an evolutionary perspective, FOMO could be related to emotions that served an adaptive function for our ancestors,” Tchalova wrote. “Humans are thought to be wired to seek out social connection opportunities and to be vigilant for cues of social exclusion. These tendencies would have served our evolutionary ancestors well, given that they would have been highly vulnerable in their hostile environment unless they stuck together with a social group.”
The nature of the “hostile environment” has changed, but our reliance on membership in a group remains vital. Living in a hyper-connected society that values the appearance of having lots of social relationships also exacerbates our existing fear of being excluded by the group. Having a lot of followers on social media is synonymous with popularity, and to be popular, you must go out and put yourself in a position where you’re likely to meet new people.
FOMO’s scope expands as we create new friendships, join student groups, and attend an increasing number of events each week. Juliette Soma, U3 Arts, explained to The Tribune how her fear of feeling excluded commands the way she makes decisions. Not attending an event means missing an opportunity to meet new people and extend your network—students are always craving LinkedIn connections—which could also mean missing out on the “true university experience.” FOMO thus makes deciding not to go out feel like the obviously wrong choice.
FOMO can also be ever-present for those who are not as financially privileged as McGill student life can demand. I didn’t do Frosh because of the cost, and in first year, I often felt like I needed to compensate for missing that opportunity to create friendships. Feeling like you’re not experiencing the undergraduate life you expected is frustrating, especially when you see others enjoying it to the fullest. As a consequence, every cheaper event becomes unmissable, even when you’re super tired, busy with school, or simply not in the mood.
Beyond impacting decision-making, FOMO is also a source of anxiety. When my phone buzzes with group chat messages from my hometown friends planning their next outing, I can’t help but think about all the little moments and private jokes I might be missing. As an international student, it’s difficult to accept that there are some events that would simply be impossible to go to. This hit me especially hard when I realized I would have to be absent for my little brother’s 18th birthday.
This feeling is only worsened by social media. As soon as I open Instagram, BeReal, Snapchat, TikTok, or even Facebook for that matter, I’m immediately confronted with my absence in the photos on my feed. But social media is a playground for curation: What is shown on those apps are carefully chosen, ostentatious moments that can easily make you believe that you missed out on something extraordinary. It creates a vicious circle in which our FOMO is reinforced when we are faced with the idea that we actually missed something great, leading to increased fear of missing out again.
Alexandre Tedesco, a student at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), a research university in Switzerland, wrote in a statement to The Tribune that he discovered the concept of FOMO recently on social media, and it resonated with him immediately.
“The whole issue lies in the fact that I’m comparing two things that shouldn’t be compared: My regular life and the highlights of others’ lives,” Tedesco wrote. “Social media doesn’t just trigger FOMO—it makes it addictive. Even if talking about the broader sense of the term, I feel like, being of curious nature, sometimes I find myself checking my phone to see the [latest] sports result or headline in the newspaper just because I NEED TO KNOW.”
The hyper-exposure created by social media also means that your presence, or lack thereof, at events, could theoretically be noticed by anyone you know. This in turn reinforces anxiety as you start wondering what people will think of you for staying in, whatever the reason.
We must also consider why FOMO affects some people more than others and potential ways to work with the feeling. First off, there is an obvious generational gap. I feel like my parents don’t experience that feeling at all; I don’t hear them complain about their friends throwing an event and them not being there, or at least not to the point that they become anxious about it. My own mother says she used to feel that way, but as an adult who is more settled and secure in herself and her social circle, she doesn’t rely on this as much.
“As we get older, we get tired of this agitation—always more! Finally, the gaze of others is less significant,” she explained. “But even without mentioning age, a certain fatigue arises over the years and many people realize that they are tired of this overdose of information.”*
Social media is also a key reason for generational differences in experiencing FOMO, given our generation’s record levels of social media use, although Tchalova emphasized that it can be detrimental for users of any age.
“Some research has shown that FOMO is related to loneliness, lower self-compassion, and lower self-esteem across different age cohorts. So, if you feel disconnected from others, or if you tend to take a more critical view of yourself and struggle with feelings [of] self-worth, you may be more susceptible to FOMO regardless of your age,” Tchalova wrote. “Similarly, that link between social media use and FOMO is present across different age cohorts, so if you’re an older adult who spends a lot of time on social media you could be vulnerable as well.”
Prior to doing the research for this article, I had always assumed that FOMO affects everyone the same way, but I started to realize that personality actually plays a big role. It makes sense; personality influences each person’s confidence in their priorities, desires, and facility with making friends. But that doesn’t mean all is lost if you’re prone to attacks of FOMO: Consciously reflecting on what you think is most important in your life—your whole life, not just Friday nights—can help you evaluate which choices align with your values. Although it may feel silly, taking a few moments to write down your priorities can make a big difference in terms of feeling secure about your decisions. This intentional decision-making process can, in turn, help mitigate the anxiety and doubt that come along with saying no to an invitation. If going out is only at the top of your list because you’re afraid that others won’t like you if you don’t, maybe that means it doesn’t have to be as high-priority. Confidence also comes from being true to oneself.
Yet, FOMO can have come with some positives for those who wouldn’t otherwise feel motivated to exit their comfort zone. As Allison Garden, U3 Arts, put it: “[FOMO] can be beneficial—especially when you’re new—to explore new things, and maybe meet new people that you would not have met if you [hadn’t stepped] out of your comfort zone—so in a way, it can help you grow sometimes.
Between the ages of 4 and 16, I did ballet, and I always used to tell my mom that I didn’t want to go. But I knew my friends were going to have fun without me, and that would force me to get up and join the class. Every single time, I came home with a huge smile on my face.
I don’t regret going to my friend’s New Year’s party. But I also know that I would have been at least as happy—and probably even more—if I had spent that night with my mom. Being able to listen to my desires and appreciate what I am doing instead of what I might be missing is an ongoing learning process and an uphill battle in our age of constant exposure to curated highlights from everyone’s lives on social media. FOMO is an important part of growing up and can even help you know yourself and your priorities better. If you treat FOMO as an opportunity to pause, evaluate your priorities, and make a decision that aligns with your underlying values, each instance of FOMO can help you understand how you want to spend your time in the future. And as you get older, and the constantly-shifting landscape of university social life switches out for an established rhythm, social pressure to attend events at the expense of what you want to be doing becomes less impactful. After all, my mother wasn’t worried about partying with her friends on New Year’s, because she already knew what was most important to her: Spending time with me.
*This interview was translated from the French.
