Spring Break FOMO

I've become acutely aware over the past few days that social media is the root of all FOMO. It's UNC's Spring Break, and while most of my friends are sipping on pina coladas dangling their toes into crystal pools surrounded by waiters carrying more pina coladas, I'm staying in Chapel Hill and working. I don't mean to sound like a total ingrate; I love Chapel Hill and am very happy to be saving money for what will be an incredible summer. But every time I log onto Facebook or check my Instagram feed I'm bombarded with enough images of tropical paradise to make even the least FOMO-prone person crumble.

It's also just about impossible to escape. After vowing to avoid Instagram, I logged onto Facebook to reply to a message from a friend only to see that it ended with the signature "Sent from Cancun, Mexico." Snapchat isn't safe either. I'm hesitant to tap on each pending snap because I know it will probably reveal my bikini-clad friends splashing around the water in feigned candidness. Okay, maybe I'm just bitter...

But all of this got me thinking.

FOMO has been around forever, long before the advent of social media. When I was a kid, I used to come home from school and whine to my parents about things the other kids had at school that I didn't ("But Mom, everyone else eats Lunchables!"). Oh, the envy of those pre-packaged pepperonis and cold tomato sauce....

I was also practically the last person on earth to get a smartphone, thanks to my parents' misguided assumption that it was excessive to have a phone with internet capabilities. I was a college freshman unable to check email or Facebook from my handheld, and I'd developed such a chronic case of FOMO that my parents finally took pity on me.

It's kind of like a modern-day "Keeping up with the Joneses." Before, we developed FOMO when we interacted with people and became aware of the things they had or the things they talked about doing. Now, all we have to do is pull out our smartphones for live, instant updates on all of our friends' awesomeness.

So is all of this healthy? How much extra time, money and effort do we put into keeping up with our friends now that social media has basically created a cesspool of FOMO? I know I'm guilty of going out way too often because I think about how good a time all my friends will have without me if I stay in. Sometimes it's worth it, but many times I realize the outing wasn't much different than all the others, and I could've benefited from saving the money and binging on Netflix.

But I also think FOMO can be a good thing. A few weeks ago I saw Instagram posts of my friends enjoying a Carolina baseball game on a sunny Chapel Hill day, and I was reminded how much I enjoy baseball games and that I need to go to them more often. A few days ago, my friend posted a picture of a delicious-looking Starbucks concoction ordered off the "secret menu" that gave me inspiration for my next coffee run.

The fact is, being able to constantly know what everybody else is up to has its perks and its obvious downsides. In situations like my current one, it's very easy to compare my Spring Break to everyone else's and feel like I'm seriously missing out. But the tradeoff is that I get to save money for traveling abroad this summer. I think the best way to approach FOMO is to realize that we can't all do everything all the time. There will always be someone doing something cooler than you and posting about it. But the next week, maybe you'll be basking in the sun in Hawaii while they're crammed into a cubicle. Instead of scrolling through your feeds and feeling like you're missing out, just remember that your time is coming.