Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is the uneasy and sometimes all-consuming feeling that you’re missing out—that your peers are doing, in the know about or in possession of more or something better than you. FOMO may be a social angst that’s always existed, but it’s going into overdrive thanks to real-time digital updates and to our constant companion, the smartphone. »1

Until today I had no idea that the FOMO phenomenon had been named, I only knew I had an ever growing concern about the possibility that I might be paying too much attention to my phone. I often drop everything I’m doing to answer the beckoning call of a notification. I believe I may suffer from a different strain of the FOMO, the PROFOMO (short for professional fear of missing out, trademark pending). I realize that by configuring a specific sound to work-related emails (I don’t recommend you to set that up in your phone if you haven’t done so already) I’ve conditioned a pavlovian response2 that I can no longer supress.

Browsing the iTunes store on a Sunday night, looking for a movie to watch, a snazzy poster would usually catch my eye. I’d click on the movie’s description and sneak a peek at the Rotten Tomatoes and user ratings and not read a single word of it unless it had at least three stars.

The same goes for any product that can be consulted on any website with a rating system. I’d never really thought about it from an objective standpoint, but what I was doing by perusing those ratings wasn’t just informing my decisions, it was conforming to the consensus of the previous buyers.