FOMO and its manifestation through Facebook
Introduction:
As a generation, we joke about a fear of missing out for one simple exact reason—it doesn’t feel good to be excluded. But for some users, specifically college-aged passive users who log on to Facebook out of habit, boredom, and procrastination, on the social media platform, Facebook, this feeling has become a reality and it’s relived over and over due to the site’s defining features. Once a user uploads a photo, it’s there to be viewed forever. In 2004, Facebook was created with the intention of transforming one-on-one interactions to a much larger, many-to-many scale. With features like photo sharing, the newsfeed, and “liking” or “commenting,” the creators of Facebook wanted to make it possible for the world to connect. However, the reality is that as a result of these features, users have increasingly begun to feel disconnected and excluded. Therefore, there is a misalignment between the intention of Facebook and the reality of the platform to its’ users. Through its mechanisms of uploading photos and generating a newsfeed, Facebook as an institution amplifies feelings of exclusion, isolation, and loneliness, also know as the phenomenon of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out), as it promotes the false perceptions of other peoples’ happiness and social comparison.
Facebook as a technology:
Facebook embodies certain characteristics of new media. It’s virtual, as it occurs online. It’s networked, as we can share photos with other users. It bridges space and allows users to connect. It’s interactive, as users can communicate with one another or convey meaning through the feature. By having the ability to interact with each other, the feature allows users to construct meaning for the content. Lastly, it’s simulated because it mirrors the reality of sharing photos with friends, as well as interacting with them. These characteristics can be seen through the platform’s defining features.
The photo feature of Facebook was implemented to help users “tell a story.” After creating a profile, users can upload an unlimited amount of photos both through mobile and a specific type of web interface. Overall, the uploading process is pretty straight forward, but does not mirror the reality of developing photos at a store. On every user profile, next to the profile picture, five options exist: timeline, about, photos, friends, and more. If you scroll your mouse over the photo option and click, a new page filled with all of your already existent photos (including “photos of you,” “your photos, “albums,” and “not tagged”), as well as the option to create a new album will appear on your screen. If you click “create an album,” a new window will pop up, where you have the ability to pick photos from any device, place, or application on your computer. Most of the time users will have already made photos or albums on their desktop or, if users have a Mac computer, their photos will be in their iPhoto (previously downloaded onto Mac computers from a camera or phone) that they choose to upload to their albums. When the user clicks on a file on the pop up screen and clicks “open” at the bottom left corner, the photo (or photos) will upload to the virtual album, and they will be able to create an album title, tag someone in the photo, rotate the photo, create a caption, and delete the photo. Once all of the photos are uploaded (which they will let you know through a pop-up screen that indicates the photos are finished uploading) and the album is published (press publish on the pop-up screen that indicates the photos are finished), the album is uploaded onto their profile, and others have the ability to see the photos, comment, “like,” or report the photo. Users also have the ability to “like” or comment on the whole album. In addition, Facebook allows users to “share” the photos with a web link (that users can then post to their own profiles or on their newsfeed) or send via email or other social media platforms. Lastly, users can order prints or copies of the photos uploaded through an integrated interface.
The other feature of Facebook that relates to this argument is the newsfeed. Newsfeed is a user’s home page. In other words, when a user logs into Facebook, the site takes the user directly to the newsfeed, with options on the left hand side of the screen to view their own profile. Newsfeed is a continuous list that updates within seconds and previews stories from people and Pages that users follow on Facebook (either by “friending” someone or “liking” a Page). Stories can include status updates, photos, videos, links, as well as conversations taking place between the walls of the user’s “friends.” The newsfeed appears in descending order, with the latest activity appearing first. As the user scrolls down on the newsfeed, posts from an earlier time appear. The stream of stories is updated within seconds, so users can always stay connected to other users and their whereabouts.
FOMO through Facebook:
The intention of these thick descriptions was to take interpersonal, one to one relationships and transform them to a global, interconnected scale, where the relationships between users become many to many. However, as a result of these features and because of the new millennia’s fear of missing out (new phenomenon taking place, known as FOMO), Facebook can cause users to feel left out when they see their friends in pictures without them.
Thus, Facebook cannot be described using Pacey’s CTO model, but using a hinged version of the model, showing the misalignment between the intention and the reality of Facebook.
The article “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely” featured in The Atlantic supports the idea of FOMO amplified through Facebook by making the claim, “Over the past three decades, technology has delivered to us a world in which we need not be out of contact for a fraction of a moment…Yet within this world of instant and absolute communication, unbounded by limits of time or space, we suffer from unprecedented alienation. We have never been more detached from one another, or lonelier” (Marche 1). Because of our increasing age of interconnectivity, there is a constant need for people today to feel involved in others’ lives. In addition, because people are always “in the know,” they feel the need to constantly be part of the pictures that are taken or activities being exposed. Because it is hard to judge the reality behind a photo, if people are not included, they feel as if they are missing out.
However, what users expect from their relationships because of face-to-face experiences (trust, inclusion, and embodiment) has now become a distorted understanding of relationships—full of jealousy, isolation, and loneliness. In addition to this loneliness, research has shown that Facebook also causes increased amounts of jealously. In an article in The New Yorker, called “How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy,” Maria Konnikova summarizes data found in multiple studies. She states, “one experiment concluded that Facebook could even cause problems in relationships, by increasing feelings of jealousy” (Konnikova 1). She goes on to say, “Another group of researchers has suggested that envy, too, increases with Facebook use: the more time people spent browsing the site, as opposed to actively creating content and engaging with it, the more envious they felt. The effect, suggested Hanna Krasnova and her colleagues, was a result of the well-known social-psychology phenomenon of social comparison. It was further exacerbated by a general similarity of people’s social networks to themselves: because the point of comparison is like-minded peers, learning about the achievements of others hits even harder” (Konnikova 1). The article then explains that because using Facebook becomes addictive, it can lead users to feel a nagging, illuminating sense of negativity. This may lead to a resentment of the user themselves, as the friends’ whose profiles photos they are viewing. Furthermore, it leads users to question their own lives in comparison (and often resentment) to others’ lives (Konnikova 1).
Even if the photo was taken a week or year ago, to the third party, it seems like the first two friends were just together, without inviting the third party to join. So what were once internal values of reality, presence, and truth between users in real time between friends have now become perceptions of what their friends may be doing based on what is shown through Facebook, representation of how people want to expose themselves (meaning that the users uploading the photos are now in ultimate control of how they want to present themselves), and a looking glass lens into each other’s lives, on a virtual platform, instead of a real presence. These internal values of users have now turned into institutional values of Facebook. Because of this misalignment between the intention of Facebook and reality of Facebook, the cultural aspect of the technology is hinged. The cultural aspect of Facebook changes depending on if critics are viewing Facebook as an institution or as the user interprets and internalizes the activities that they are continuously exposed to.
Furthermore, with today’s millennial generation, it seems like the only way to solidify a moment or a friendship is to take a picture and broadcast it to the world (i.e. Facebook). However, a picture can be staged, meaning that although the people in the photo may be smiling, there is no true indication of whether they’re having a good time (adding to the institutional values of perception and representation). Users tend to upload photos that reflect themselves (such as the “selfie,” a photo taken by you of you), but what the public might not know is how many photos did those users take before finding the “perfect” one? On top of that, as people upload their photos, they are forced onto other users’ radars based on the way the site is set up. Therefore, the newsfeed (the homepage of Facebook where users can update themselves on all of their “friends’” lives) falsely compiles peoples’ happiness, and causes users viewing the photo to feel down about themselves. It’s this compilation of photos that users are exposed to unconsciously that may cause them to feel isolated. Thus, peoples’ desire to tell stories in order to form genuine relationships has been magnified in its operation because people have the ability to construct them, and therefore, construct (or deconstruct) their relationships. While the intention of newsfeed was to include users in all of their “friends’” lives constantly and continuously, the reality is that as a result of the newsfeed, users have faced heightened feelings of exclusion, creating a huge cultural divide between intended philosophy of Facebook and its actual effects.
The Passive Consumer:
The Atlantic article (mentioned above) further explores this idea that “non-personalized use of Facebook—scanning your friends’ status updates, and updating the world on your own activities via your wall, or what Burke calls ‘passive consumption’ and ‘broadcasting’—correlates with feelings of disconnectedness” (Marche 2).
Similar to Marche’s findings, certain research explains that looking at a newsfeed is passive participation with the site, and causes more of a feeling of isolation. Konnikova argues, “In every study that distinguished the two types of Facebook experiences—active versus passive—people spent, on average, far more time passively scrolling through newsfeeds than they did actively engaging with content. This may be why general studies of overall Facebook use, like Kross’s of Ann Arbor residents, so often show deleterious effects on our emotional state. Demands on our attention lead us to use Facebook more passively than actively, and passive experiences, no matter the medium, translate to feelings of disconnection and boredom” (Konnikova 1).
For generation Y, it’s easy for users to look at other users’ profiles (especially their friends) and compare lifestyles, resulting in internal emotions such as jealously, isolation and loneliness. When photos are presented (staged or real), it’s unlikely for the user to be unaffected, and therefore feel isolated or left out, despite whether these photos the user is looking at include those of friends seen daily or distant friends. Think back to fourth grade, when everyone was invited to a birthday party, except you. Now think about being reminded of that feeling over again, except this time there’s proof in a photograph posted online.
Because of this global interaction (many to many scale) that Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, created, relationships and values between users are also brought to this scale. The users that I am referring to are, as previously stated, millennial college-aged students, who log onto Facebook daily, exposing themselves to the relationships they once had in person. Although Zuckerberg’s intention was to bring users together, the features of Facebook have caused these feelings of exclusion and isolation. Because Facebook was created so users can stay updated on each other’s lives, the site presents great irony. These passive users log on to Facebook multiple times a day to gain satisfaction from their boredom, procrastination, or simple need to stay connected, but in while doing so, users feel even more isolated. Marche adds depth to this point by making the claim, “What’s truly staggering about Facebook usage is not its volume—750 million photographs uploaded over a single weekend—but the constancy of the performance it demands. More than half of its users—and one of every 13 people on Earth is a Facebook user—log on every day. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, nearly half check Facebook minutes after waking up, and 28 percent do so before getting out of bed…Facebook never takes a break. We never take a break. Human beings have always created elaborate acts of self-presentation. But not all the time, not every morning, before we even pour a cup of coffee” (Marche 3). Thus, from an organizational standpoint, once again, the intention of Facebook did not result in the realities of the social media platform.
Facebook, FOMO, and their impact on a larger scale:
Because the founders of this site originally created it as a way to find girls to date, as well as a way for people to connect to each other, there is a level of social construction. Therefore, the features present were created with a certain socialized idea in mind, and as a result, the process of uploading photos changes depending on user’s social identities, such as socio-economic status, race, gender, or age. For example, higher socio-economic status college-aged males will upload a different type of a picture for a different reason even compared to a college-aged woman, let alone someone of a completely different age category. Women will most likely upload photos that appeal to men, and men will look at photos of women who they find attractive. On another level, both men and women will upload photos to make those of the same sex jealous. This whole process is gendered, both on an individual level and a systematic level. Because Facebook started as a website for users to gain attention of other users of the opposite sex, systematically the site is gendered. In addition, because males and females use the site in very different ways (i.e. use different features offered or the type of people that comment on a photo, etc.), the site is gendered on a very individual level. Because of the intent and social construction of the founders and developers of this feature, the whole aspect can be seen as power structure and imbalance, depending on the context it is viewed in (either at an individual level or systematic level).
Libby Copeland, once again, claims that the type of people affected by this feature (as well as Facebook as a whole) vary, but overall, there is a negative impact. She claims, “By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people's lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles' heel of human nature. And women—an especially unhappy bunch of late—may be especially vulnerable to keeping up with what they imagine is the happiness of the Joneses” (Copeland 1).
She goes on to explain why women are more susceptible to these feelings of isolation than men, thus creating an even more gendered site. “For one thing, more women than men inhabit the site, and women users tend to be more active on the site, as Forbes has reported. According to a recent study out of the University of Texas at Austin, while men are more likely to use the site to share items related to the news or current events, women tend to use it to engage in personal communication (posting photos, sharing content "related to friends and family"). This may make it especially hard for women to avoid comparisons that make them miserable” (Copeland 2).
Although Pacey’s (hinged) model breaks down the role that photo uploading and sharing, as well as the newsfeed, play on Facebook, it only provides a framework. What must be analyzed are the feature’s implications on users, and therefore society. After understanding the different aspects of this feature, it can be argued that this feature has a negative affect on users. Behind the idea of uploading photos in order to brag as a means of societal acceptance, is the looming effect of what it does to other users. However, it is important to note that the reactions might change depending on the type of user this “looming effect” affects. By viewing these photos, other users judge their lifestyle and level of happiness in comparison. Therefore, users start to base their lives on the extent of other peoples’ happiness. On the other side however, maybe users are genuinely happy for the users they are “stalking” (a slang word for looking up, according to Facebook users), and do not compare themselves to these “friends.” In addition, Marche argues that its not Facebook that creates this feeling of isolation, its us as a society that already feels isolated (i.e. users who have feelings of detachment and loneliness and therefore use Facebook as an outlet) and the website just perpetuates those feelings. In other words, its impossible for Facebook to create these change—we must be feeling them already as humans (Marche 3).
Although this concept of comparing yourself to others isn’t new (as this has always been innate human nature), Facebook has now magnified it and has made it a greater social issue—one that has been around for ages, but is exacerbated by Facebook. In a way, Facebook has become a virtual simulation of reality. Everyday, users scroll through their newsfeed, mindlessly starring at others’ photos, they are passively taking in this information and are consciously comparing lifestyles. As explained earlier in this argument, Maria Konnikova relates this passive consumption of Facebook to an increased sense of jealousy and isolation (Konnikova 1).
Conclusion:
Overall, this hinged CTO model describes the distortion between Facebook as an institution and its intention and the reality of how users have interpreted and used its features. Although the intention was to connect users across the world, the reality is that it has led users feeling isolated and detached, because of the way the platform transformed the meaning of relationships. However, we may ask ourselves: would these feelings of social comparison, and therefore jealousy, isolation, and exclusion occur naturally, without the invention of Facebook? The answer is yes. But, because of Facebook, we are constantly made aware of this reality every time we log on to our accounts. The sense of alienation and self-doubt is real. We live in a world where it’s natural to compare ourselves to each other. But this Facebook feature has made it possible for people to flaunt their happiness, at the expense of others’ feelings of exclusion and isolation.
References:
Copeland, Libby. “The Anti-Social Network.” Slate Magazine. Jan. 26 2011. Web. Retrieved on April 8 2014. http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2011/01/the_antisocial_network.2.html
Konnikova, Maria. “How Facebook Makes Us Unhappy.” The New Yorker. Sept. 10 2013. Web. Retrieved on April 8 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2013/09/the-real-reason-facebook-makes-us-unhappy.html
Marche, Stephen. “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” The Atlantic. April 2 2012. Web. Retrieved on April 18 2014. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/308930/
Pacey, Arnold. The Culture of Technology. MIT Press. 1983.
Yadav, Sid. “Facebook- The Complete Biography.” Mashable. Aug. 25 2006. Retrieved on April 17 2014. http://mashable.com/2006/08/25/facebook-profile/