The word FOMO is actually an acronym. It stands for the “fear of missing out” and, if you’re like most people, this is a feeling you’ve probably experienced before.
In fact, FOMO is a recognized form of social anxiety. It can negatively affect both mood and life satisfaction and can even lead to more serious, long-term anxiety or depression.
What makes FOMO happen? Well, for starters a big contributor to FOMO is social media. This is because social media makes it possible for people to know what other people are doing all day, every day.
Think about it: when you’re stuck at work, the last thing you want to see is a picture of your friends out having fun.
So, it’s easy to see why 56% of social media users suffer from FOMO. Recognizing FOMO as a mental health risk, and seeing its prevalence in society today, Halcyon focused an entire campaign on the issue.
The campaign
We recently launched a campaign to educate people about the causes and effects of FOMO, with the end goal of equipping people with the tools to overcome FOMO in their daily lives.
We put together a 10-question quiz with the intention of presenting the facts about the problem of FOMO, both as a personal mental health risk and a common phenomenon.
At the end of the quiz, we attached a blog that could serve as a resource for people in search of ways to deal with FOMO.
The results
This campaign was less successful than some of Halcyon’s previous campaigns in terms of mind change* and behavior change**. That being said, 100% of respondents who completed our quiz visited the resource blog on how to deal with FOMO.
To sum it up:
- 66.9% of respondents stated they care more about looking after their FOMO after what they learned from our quiz.*
- 67.7% of respondents stated they would be more inclined to change the way they live to address FOMO.**
- 100% of respondents who completed the quiz accessed the toolkit at the end of the quiz with 8 ways to deal with FOMO.
What you can do
If you want to learn more about FOMO’s causes and effects, as well as some ideas for how to solve it, just follow these easy steps:
- Take our quiz!
- Read the resource blog for 8 easy ways to deal with FOMO.
- Share! Everyone gets FOMO. All the more reason to send your friends our quiz and help spread the word!
Donate! When you donate to the Halcyon Movement, you help us continue to bring awareness to issues like FOMO that get in the way of human flourishing.
