FOMO and Coping skills for Children

There’s an epidemic raging in the community, and it isn’t a variant of Corona.

It’s FOMO – otherwise known as the Feeling of Missing Out.

What is FOMO – the Fear of Missing Out

FOMO is the feeling that you are missing out on something fundamentally important that others are experiencing right now. It can be anything from a party on a Friday night to a promotion at work, a new purchase, possession or relationship, but it always involves a sense of helplessness that you are missing out on something big.

First coined in 1996, by Dan Herman, a Marketing strategist, the term refers to that uncomfortable but normal emotion that creates negative feelings. Interestingly, studies reveal the information source, (friend, social media etc) isn’t as relevant, in triggering a negative emotional response, as the actual content of the information.

We can all experience FOMO and in some cases, it isn’t a bad thing.

Our brains are geared to sensing that not having vital information, that not being a part of the “in” group, is a threat to our survival. Thus, FOMO may trigger a stress response or “fight or flight” protective response. Fear of missing out was found to be associated with a lower sense of having one’s needs met as well as a lower feeling of life satisfaction in general.

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Evolutionary Reasons for FOMO

Before modern times, [that sense of] belonging used to be essential to a person’s safety and physiological needs. If a person didn’t have a tribe or a hunting group, they might not get food or be protected from predators. Nowadays, if a person feels isolated, they may find themselves at higher risk of anxiety, depression, and even obesity or stroke. ~https://practicalpie.com

The survival of humans has always hinged on communication. It’s been helpful for us to be in the know and being included has made survival easier. Today, information on both threats and resources is received by way of television, newspapers, the internet, and social media platforms. We are very well informed.

But being in the know can be a double-edged sword.

Social media has made FOMO – an inbuilt mechanism to aid our continued survival, more pervasive, obvious and pathological as it intensifies the comparisons of regular life to the highlights of others’.

Social media and constant comparisons to others skew our sense of “normal” and we may judge ourselves negatively, or perceive that we are doing worse than our peers. Detailed photos of your friends enjoying fun times without you, is something that people were not so readily aware of in the past. But it isn’t new in a physiological sense. It’s FOMO.

Self-soothing Strategies and Parenting Styles

In the Western World, children lead, for the most part, privileged lives, (historically speaking). Lives where parents seek to give their offspring everything they didn’t have or get to experience themselves.

Parents naturally want to smooth the way for their kids, so they’ll grow up happy, and comfortable, with their needs met. Who would not want to bring a smile to a child and make them feel comfortable and loved? Children are usually very much wanted.

But is this desire to meet their wants and needs, killing them with kindness?

Danish citizens call it “curling parents.” (Smoothing the way forward like the broom in the sport of curling). When these kids become adults, they may have to face a difficult chink in the ice, on their own, without the parent smoothing out any snags. Some rise to the challenge and others might stumble and fail.

I was recently heard about a family who were about to close a sale on an affordable second-hand minivan for use on family holidays. When their five-year-old complained that the minivan smelt bad and refused to set foot in it, the parents passed up the sale and instead, bought a different style of caravan, a new one. I do hope the five-year-old’s olfactory senses were not the overriding consideration. I can’t help thinking: What message was this decision sending to the five-year-old?

My son was around 8 years old when he developed an intense interest in Pokémon. All the boys were into it. Around that time, his school friend went on a trip to the United States with his family and the family visited Disneyland. Naturally, the friend returned to school spruiking wondrous tales of the Pokémon exhibit.

Soon after, my son would beg us to take him to see the Pokémon exhibit in Disneyland. A family trip to America was not within our means as we lived in Australia, nor was it on our list of priorities. I certainly wasn’t going to plan an expensive overseas trip, based on a child’s whim. Instead, I explained how expensive it was to travel to the United States, how each family was different and had different priorities, and how it was okay and lucky for the other family that they got to visit Disneyland but it was not right for our family at that time.

And then I mentioned how some other toy/hobby/fascination would most likely take his interest in time, and his response I have to say, was mildly shocking:

“But Mum, that’s why we have to go to Disneyland NOW!”

His amygdala was certainly interpreting this FOMO as a threat to his survival!

Yet, clearly, it wasn’t.

We didn’t visit Disneyland and in time, the Pokémon fad disappeared and my son’s interests changed. However, I wonder if well-meaning parents who wish to indulge a child inadvertently miss promoting patience, perseverance or self-control when their child experiences some degree of FOMO?

How many kids of today learn to sit out their dreams waiting, hoping or saving their pocket money for years for a special toy or the latest video game? Or just til the next Christmas/birthday/parental payday rolls around?

Because we all want them to be happy, fulfilled and blessed? Right?

Crucial ‘teachable,’ moments in a child’s life are opportunities for carers and parents to nurture or promote emotional self-soothing strategies. Strategies that may help them cope with strongly felt emotions – i.e. how to live with disappointment and sadness, envy, or how to persevere despite setbacks, how to cope with delayed gratification, to show restraint or self-control.

Giving children what they want isn’t necessarily going to give them any more than temporary satisfaction. Giving them what they need might be preferable, in the long term and afford them an opportunity to develop some self-soothing strategies in the face of discomfort AND some coping strategies in the face of perceived threats of FOMO.

Especially if the item they want is something insignificant, such as Pokémon.

We can’t yet fully grasp how new technologies affect our psyches. Therefore, it is up to us as users to figure out where, when, and how often to use these products and services.” ~www.psychologytoday.com

How to Deal with FOMO

• Relish feeling out of the loop. Accept that things are indeed happening in society and sometimes you’re not invited. Embrace the fact. Blogger and entrepreneur Anil Dash wrote about the “Joy of Missing Out,” in which he learned to find pleasure in JOMO after the birth of his son when he discovered the simple joy of getting home in time to give his son a bath and put him to bed.

• Use software apps to help you get started: Apps such as Forest for iOS, Space for Android, RescueTime for Windows, or SelfControl for Mac generate reports to help users see just how much time they spend online and set time limits. For those who need more: Internet-blocking software Freedom or browser extensions such as Website Blocker or WasteNoTime block sites that cause unwanted distractions.

https://www.psychologytoday.com

Despite our ancient tendency to feel the negative emotion of FOMO, the feelings can be reversed or mitigated and there is even evidence to suggest FOMO reduces with age.

There is hope if you can resist!

Hate Speech and Social Media Comments

Lately, you and I have been chatting about comments on blog posts and I realized I have been duped.

Duped into thinking that readers are mostly good-hearted folks whose comments add something to the conversation.

Blog comments at StPA range from kind messages of thanks, or information, to good-natured friendly banter and jibes, (yes, M-R, I am looking at you!). However, in ten years of blogging, I’ve never experienced abusive, slanderous language or worse still, threats of lynching in my comments.

This is the stuff of high school novels and bygone times from troubled areas, not something in my little sub-tropical state floating in the Southern Pacific Ocean.

It seems it’s a different reality for some people.

Whilst listening to a FB live stream of a state politician giving a Covid update – who happened to be female, I glanced at the comments, posted thereunder.

I was actually disgusted by the nature of many of the comments. Many, many of them. In particular, a comment from someone named Kevin.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

A dodgy or even derogatory comment from someone with an opposing political ideology would not be that surprising, given it was a politician speaking, but a serious threat, hate speech and people laughing and “liking” that hate speech was shocking. Not once, but twice, with others chiming in.

Disgusting. Immoral.

I can only imagine what it would feel like to read and stomach that kind of rubbish, day after day – even if you have a P.A to do that for you.

I may dislike certain politicians, but I could never even contemplate how I would murder them! I won’t repeat what this offender wrote, but it shocked me beyond belief.

Needless to say, I reported ‘Kevin’s’ shocking comment to FB – (to a possible complaint bot). I say bot because surely no human could post a message such as this, in reply : –

Great! – if threats of lynching and death, meet the community standard you uphold, FB – I want nothing more to do with you.

But I was curious about Kevin. So I looked him up:

Kevin – apparently- hails from Ontario and has, little if any, connection to my sub-tropical corner of the universe. Assuming this is just a sh_t stirrer/potential troll it’s, completely irrelevant to matters here. An impotent person/bot thousands of miles away condemning one of our female politicians in a cruel, disgusting way. That would be like me, an Aussie, making a similar comment on a thread of a male Governor in South Carolina, or perhaps, yes, Ontario.

As I say, completely irrelevant.

But I have now learnt a thing or two about FB and the standards it upholds. And I won’t forget that.

Herd Mentality

The Honey bee is successful because it is a master of teamwork and collective decision making. They use their communication system to allow good decisions to spread and diminish information that is unhelpful.

Joanne Reed

According to Author Joanne Reed, humans in a group, are influenced by what the majority of others are thinking, or doing, a similar thought, or thing, rather than the message, a type of herd mentality. When there is uncertainty in the environment surrounding a decision, she notes that people tend to feel safer, ‘siding with the crowd,’ rather than going it alone, even if that decision might be a bad one. Yet we are alert to bad news, it garners our attention, more so than good news.

Social Experiment on Herd Mentality

Citing a social experiment using slot machines and payouts, Joanne Reed talks about how people tended to follow the choice of the majority, once they had learned a particular slot machine paid out, more often than the rest. When the winning slot machine was changed, they stuck with playing that same machine even after it no longer paid out.

When uncertainty increased, players apparently took even longer to break away from conformant behavior.”

authorjoannereed.net

Many marketing techniques exploit this tendency in human nature. Just this week, I saw a video advertisement for an online program designed to teach you “Secret Ways to Boost Sales,” (of one’s art products). The message was clear – You would be foolish to pass this opportunity by, as everyone, yes, everyone, is doing this and everyone, is increasing their sales exponentially.

Really?

Everyone?

Social Media and advertising plays around with this herd mentality and our decisions as a consumer. We seem more inclined to trust a beauty or personal product if it is endorsed by a particular celebrity, or professional. Products that receive a gazillion ‘likes,’ or positive reviews, appear to be seen as trustworthy and reliable, than those with a mere one-star rating.

“People are sheep. TV is the shepherd.”

Jess C. Scott, Literary Heroin (Gluttony): A Twilight Parody

Some are tempted to follow blogs or social media accounts with large followings, based on the quality of the site’s content, or the curiosity to check out what all the ‘hype,’ is about? These folks might think there is a very good reason people view them and they want to know too, right?

In smaller groups or where there was a less challenging task to undertake, people seem more comfortable pursuing, or willing to explore, less popular or divergent decisions. But this feeling of certainty and penchant for safety in numbers, that draws us to side with the crowd – where has it come from? George Patton appeared to value divergent thinking.

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.”

George S. Patton on authorjoannereed.net

Given that bees are highly successful using collective communication methods, it is interesting that we have been successful despite our tendencies towards herd decision making. Some research suggests that we have been successful, not just because we were a co-operative species, but because we have been friendly. People are more likely to work cooperatively, if their colleagues are friendly.

Some folks might be more inclined to join a protest rally when their friends were doing it, or it seemed the right thing to do because there is a subconscious message as everyone is doing it? Would they still join the protest on belief in the cause, alone?

The nail that sticks up, will be hammered down

Japanese Proverb

Food for Thought

Does this have implications in what we see in today’s society? Or how future societies might be?

Are we just as guilty of herd decision-making, if we side with the majority of a team in a workplace?

How influenced are you by the herd?

Do you listen to divergent opinions?

Something to Ponder About

Calling All Humans – Pick up the Phone!

What would you rate as the single most important thing in your life?

Family, your passion/hobby, right? Of course! So what would rate second to this? What do you spend most of your time doing? What would you find hard to live without?For most of us, especially the young, a truthful answer might be their Smart phone. Why? Because it is has become the primary means of communication, in daily life. And humans, being a gregarious, social bunch, thrive on communication. Whether one is verbal or non-verbal, whatever language one speaks, communication is essential, vital and pretty impossible to live without.

Whilst the PC has given us a global communication and information portal, the Smart phone is now our PC. The smartphone’s portability gives us that freedom to communicate wherever we are, but also but the power to source information worldwide, when we want it. Even in third world countries, children easily access information from anywhere in the world, without being in ‘cooee’ of a school or library, (provided there’s a cellular communication tower nearby)! Fantastic, isn’t it?

But it has its downsides too. Smartphones makes us information rich and time poor.  Smartphones mean work can go with you, 24/7 and may lead to extra stress. For some children, smartphones give bullying a new dimension, unless they are strong and bold enough to turn the phone off. To be offline or ‘disconnected’ with the world today, and all the latest happenings, is a concept totally alien to youth and could even brand one an eccentric or a hippie!

For me, the Smartphone means that checking my emails and notifications from Facebook, Pinterest, WordPress and other social media platforms, has become a fixed part of my daily routine, almost akin to a ritual. This information overload and constant switching between apps, drains my focus and my concentration levels. It makes time vanish and is so insidious, it can even make me late for work!

How frustrated can we become if our battery dies, we discover there is no internet connection, or wi-fi is horrendously slow, right? In an evolutionary sense, our brains are hard-wired to seek new information, so this led me to thinking: is this incredible invention a powerful freedom-giving communication device, capable of fulfilling all our information needs, or simply an electronic panacea, capable of dizzying, visual and auditory enslavement? Does it bring happiness, contentment, or stress and anguish, or perhaps even, a little of each?

Did the inventors of the telephone, glimpse for but a moment, the addictive nature of  facilitating global communication and the smart phone’s omnipresent infiltration in modern life? Cartoonists, it seems, had a small inkling as early as 1907!!  Punch Magazine published a cartoon entitled “Predictions for 1907” in which he showed a man and a woman in London’s Hyde Park, each separately engaged in gambling and dating, on wireless telephony equipment.[Source: Wiki] And Karl Arnold drew this visionary cartoon about wireless telephone use, in 1926!

Who was it, I pondered, that actually, started this juggernaut of communication? Generally, I’ve got a good grasp of trivia, so I was initially thinking/blaming Edison? He certainly contributed to the phone, inventing the carbon microphone, but the electric light was his brainchild. It was really Alexander Graham Bell, wasn’t it? Well, yes, but not exactly. Even in its infancy, this communication device was so enticing, so highly sought after, the person who would clam the title of inventor of the telephone became dogged in controversy. I decided to investigate, a little further, if for no other reason, than so I could point the finger of blame at his/her feet.

Memorial to Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone

My Smart phone told me that Bell has widely been regarded “as the ‘inventor’ of the telephone outside of Italy, where Meucci was championed as its inventor. Meucci, Manzetti, and Gray have each offered fairly precise tales of a contrivance, whereby Bell actively stole the invention of the telephone from their specific inventor. [I] Mmm, it seems complicated, I thought. More reading and sorting facts, was required, so I constructed a rough timeline of events to help my understanding.

Timeline of Events

1843 – Antonio Manzetti first mooted the idea of a “speaking telegraph”, or telephone, but doesn’t pursue the idea

1860 – Antonio Meucci demonstrates his apparatus “teletrofono”,  in New York in 1860[2]

1864 – to give his automaton the power of speech, Manzetti is reported to have invented his speaking telegraph –some reports state that he didn’t actually get it working until the following year. Although he didn’t patent his device, it is reported in Paris,^[3] and likely publicized, in the press, around the world.

1865 – Scottish immigrant, Alexander Graham Bell visits Antonio Manzetti and examines his “device”

1871 – Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci submitted a patent caveat for his telephonic device to the U.S. Patent Office, but there was no mention of electromagnetic transmission of vocal sound.

1874 – Elisha Gray develops a harmonic telegraph apparatus using vibrating reeds that could transmit musical tones, but not intelligible speech.

1874 – December – Gray demonstrated his device to the public at Highland Park First Presbyterian Church.

1876 – February 11 – Gray included a diagram for a telephone in his notebook.

1876 – February  14 – Gray lodged a Patent caveat at Us Patent Office shortly after it opened, a few hours before Bell’s application, but Gray’s application remained at the bottom of the in-basket until that afternoon.*

1876 – February 24 – Bell traveled to Washington DC. Nothing is entered in his lab notebook until his return to Boston on March 7.

1876 – March 7 – Bell obtains patent for “apparatus for electromagnetic transmission of  vocal or other sounds by undulatory electric current”* (see more on this below)

1876 –  March 8 – Bell and Watson, his assistant, finally got his model to work and recorded this an experiment in their lab notebook, with a diagram similar to that of Gray’s patent caveat.

1876 – August 10 – The first long distance telephone call made by Bell to his assistant located  some 10 miles (16 km) apart.

1877 – Hungarian engineer Tivadar Puskás develops an idea for a telephone exchange which built by the Bell Telephone Company in Boston

1908 – a Professor Albert Jahnke and the Oakland Transcontinental Aerial Telephone and Power Company developed a wireless telephone. They were accused of fraud and the charge was then dropped, but they do not seem to have proceeded with production^[4]

1918 – German railroad system tested wireless telephony on military trains

1926 – Telephone service in trains of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the German mail service on the route between Hamburg and Berlin offered to 1st class travelers.^[5]

1930s – Telephone sets developed combining the bell and induction coil with the desk set, obviating a separate ringer box

1950 – “Hexagonal Cells” early radio telephones created by AT&T and Bell Labs

1973 – Martin Cooper placed the first cell phone call (with a 1G mobile phone)

1991 –  the first GSM network (Radiolinja) launched in Finland

1993 –  IBM Simon introduced the world’s first smart phone. It was a mobile phone, pager, fax machine, and PDA all rolled into one

2002 – US Congress recognises a little-known mechanical genius, Antonio Meucci, as a father of modern communications, 113 years after his death.[6]

2009 – 1.26 billion fixed-line subscribers and 4.6 billion mobile telephone subscribers [Source:Wiki]

Billions of subscribers!!!! The proliferation of this fantastic invention is so widespread, it permeates many aspects of life, today.  Will books and television sets soon only be found in a museum, I thought? When I start to think like this, I had to chide myself and remember that no one would not be reading this post without the use of telephone technology!!

It is clear the history of the telephone is nearly as complicated as the device itself,  involving a variety of people, patents, lawsuits, and finally, legislation. It is ironic to think that if Gray’s patent application was time-stamped or lodged with smart phone technology, he would be the classified as the original inventor of the smart phone’s precursors. Did it come down to who had the better lawyer or legal advice? Well, only until the US government legislated in this regard, in 2002. Who do you regard as the original inventor and how much do your let the smart phone dictate how you spend your time? That is Something to ponder about.

*** Additional Notes

The water transmitter described in Gray’s caveat was strikingly similar to the experimental telephone transmitter tested by Bell on March 10, 1876, a fact which raised questions about whether Bell (who knew of Gray) was inspired by Gray’s design or vice versa. Although Bell did not use Gray’s water transmitter in later telephones, evidence suggests that Bell’s lawyers may have obtained an unfair advantage over Gray.^[7]

It is alleged that Bell bribed a patent examiner, Zenas Wilber, not only into processing his application before Gray’s, but allowing a look at his rival’s designs before final submission. Bell’s application was filed shortly before noon on February 14 by Bell’s lawyer who requested that the filing fee be entered immediately onto the cash receipts blotter and Bell’s application was taken to the Examiner immediately. Late in the afternoon, Gray’s caveat was entered on the cash blotter and was not taken to the Examiner until the following day. The fact that Bell’s filing fee was recorded earlier than Gray’s led to the myth that Bell had arrived at the Patent Office earlier.^[8] Bell was in Boston on February 14 and did not know this happened until later. Gray later abandoned his caveat and did not contest Bell’s priority.

In a letter of March 2, 1877, Bell admitted to Gray that he was aware Gray’s caveat “had something to do with the vibration of a wire in water [the variable resistance breakthrough that made the telephone practical] — and therefore conflicted with my patent.”^[9] At this time, Gray’s caveat was still confidential. In 1879, Bell testified under oath that he discussed “in a general way” Gray’s caveat with patent examiner Zenas Fisk Wilber.^[10] When patent examiners investigate possible interferences between applications, it was not uncommon for them to ask questions of the inventors directed at the places of possible interference.

In a affidavit from April 8, 1886, Wilber admitted that he was an alcoholic who owed money to his longtime friend and Civil War Army companion Marcellus Bailey, Bell’s lawyer. Wilber says that after he issued the suspension on Bell’s patent application, Bailey came to visit. In violation of Patent Office rules, he told Bailey about Gray’s caveat and told his superiors that Bell’s patent application had arrived first. During Bell’s visit to Washington, “Prof. Bell was with me an hour when I showed him the drawing [of Gray’s caveat] and explained Gray’s methods to him.” He says Bell returned at 2pm to give him a hundred-dollar bill.^[11]

Image sourced from google images!

 

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