Guide
FOMO: the fear of missing out.
Everyone else seems to be somewhere better, and the feed proves it. The fear of missing out has a name, a questionnaire and by now dozens of studies.
In short. FOMO is the worry that others are having good experiences without you, and the urge to keep checking. In meta-analyses it goes with heavier internet use, problematic phone use, phubbing and sleep problems, though the links come from surveys and cannot show cause. In one experiment, FOMO fell simply when people tracked their social media use. Fewer feeds and a way for your people to reach you ease it.
What it is
Fear of missing out is the uneasy sense that something rewarding is happening somewhere else, without you, and the pull to stay connected so you do not miss it. Andrew Przybylski and colleagues gave it a questionnaire in 2013, in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, and most studies since have used it.
What studies link it to
| Meta-analysis | Studies and people | Link with FOMO |
|---|---|---|
| Akbari and colleagues, 2021 | 86 effect sizes, 55,134 people | Internet use: from weak to strong (r = 0.11 to 0.63) depending on the group |
| Zhang and colleagues, 2023 | 85 studies | Mobile phone addiction, as the studies measured it: r = 0.47 |
| Ansari and colleagues, 2024 | 27 studies, 20,415 people, 15 countries | Phubbing: 0.43 |
| Brombach and colleagues, 2025 | 22 studies, 12,191 people | Several dimensions of sleep health; the authors call it preliminary |
The 2023 authors call a correlation of 0.47 high. But all four rest mostly on one-off surveys: FOMO may drive phone use, heavy phone use may feed FOMO, or something else may drive both.
A clue from an experiment
In a three-week experiment at the University of Pennsylvania, students who limited social media had less loneliness and depression than those who did not. Fear of missing out, though, fell in both groups, and the authors put that down to simply tracking how much they used it. Noticing may be half the cure. More in four social media experiments.
How to ease it
- Notice when it hits: the evening, the weekend, after a quick look at someone’s photos. Write down the moments for a week.
- Prune the feeds that set it off. Mute rather than unfollow, if that is easier.
- Give your people a way through. Much FOMO is about missing a message; let calls and messages from favourites through and silence the rest: what one buzz costs.
- Make your own plans. Missing out stings less when you are somewhere you chose to be.
- Check less, on purpose: the checking habit, and when it turns into neglecting your company, phubbing.
Only the people you choose
Lychnos Ring is being built to pass on messages from the people you choose and nothing else, so you can stop watching everything in case you miss the one that matters. It is in development and makes no health claims.
Sources, read 4 November 2026: Przybylski, Murayama, DeHaan and Gladwell, motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out, Computers in Human Behavior, 2013; Akbari and colleagues, FoMO and internet use: a systematic review and meta-analysis, Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 2021; Zhang and colleagues, fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction: a meta-analysis, BMC Psychology, 2023; Ansari and colleagues, phubbing and fear of missing out: a meta-analysis, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 2024; Brombach and colleagues, fear of missing out and sleep health, Psychological Reports, 2025; Hunt and colleagues, no more FOMO, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 2018. Abstracts read at Europe PMC and OpenAlex. General information, not medical advice.
Questions
What does FOMO mean?
Fear of missing out: the worry that others are having rewarding experiences without you, which keeps people checking what others are doing. Researchers have measured it with a questionnaire since 2013.
Is FOMO linked to phone addiction?
Strongly, in surveys: a 2023 meta-analysis of 85 studies found a correlation of 0.47 between FOMO and problematic phone use. A correlation does not show which causes which.