The Spaces In Between

Beep. Flash. Ring ring. Bzzzzzz. My phone vibrates across the desk to the floor. It’s exhausted; so am I.

Ever since I got this smart phone, it’s been relentlessly notifying me of things big and small. Here’s a beautiful picture of a sunset from back home. Here’s a beautiful picture of someone I once used to work with and a pizza. I found myself glued to the screen, frantically trying to keep up with all the information, invitations, pictures and videos being sent to my phone. I drove home from work and looked up at the road maybe half the time. (Sorry, Mom.)

But then there would be evenings spent at home in which my phone was conspicuously silent. I would check it every ten minutes, and my anxiety would mount with each gaze at an icon-less home screen. Where are all my friends, I thought? Are they all doing something really fun? Was I not invited to said fun? Does everyone hate me?

Thank God for Facebook, because I was able to diagnose my symptoms via a friend’s status. I was exhibiting signs of bonafide FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out. The Oxford Dictionary defines this as anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website. I found out next that the guy who “identified” and named FOMO runs seminars for marketing professionals to instruct them to successfully cater to the needs of FOMO-driven consumers.

I resent the fact that one day FOMO might grace the pages of the DSM V, alongside serious, life-consuming mental disorders. Last spring, I came down with walking pneumonia, and I came down hard. I felt like I was living life from inside of a bubble. Nothing could penetrate to make me feel alive. I was chemically depressed, and I could have been prescribed Prozac. I currently check Instagram once every couple of hours. For this, I could be prescribed Prozac. My friend Travis, who has experienced depression and anxiety disorders, says when FOMO becomes a diagnosable problem treated with medication, it trivializes mental illness.

“One of the hardest things about mental illness is that so few people respect that you are actually sick. No one would tell a guy with MS to ‘snap out of it,’ but I've heard that so many times,” he told me. “FOMO, I fear, makes it that much harder for us to put mental illness in the place it belongs in terms of the societal perception of it. It makes it harder for people who suffer serious conditions to get the help they need without being socially ostracized, which happens anyway because when you're ‘crazy’ it's your fault.”

Social media and our ability to constantly talk and text create this need for continuous external validation. When our phones are ringing off the hook, we feel wanted and important in our communities. In those spaces in between rings, we feel lonely and anxious. For some people, FOMO goes deeper than a fear of missing out on fun things – it turns into a fear of missing out on happiness. We didn’t have a good day unless someone posted a picture of us online with the caption, “Had so much fun today! #Blessed”

But there is something more important than being happy all the time: knowing how you feel at all times. Just because there is a five minute gap in which your phone’s screen remains dark doesn’t mean you are utterly alone in the universe. When we have twenty minutes in a reception area or even two minutes at a red light, we shouldn’t be tapping away at a screen. We should be tapping into our thoughts and feelings. We shy away from reflection because it could lead to pain and the realization that change may be necessary. But the alternative, distracting ourselves with notifications and worthless Snapchat, won’t heal the problems we’re facing. But asking ourselves questions like, how do I feel right now, and how can I fix what’s bothering me, will do some good. This same process can be used in good times as well. On superb beach days, instead of taking a million pictures, we should remember what Kurt Vonnegut’s Uncle Alex told him: “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

We shouldn’t glean all our gratification and validation from external sources like Instagram and Facebook; these feelings should originate within ourselves. We don’t have to be consistently present in other people’s lives and tapped into the Twitterverse to participate in life. A tree always makes a sound when it falls in a forest, no matter who’s listening. Ergo we can have valuable experiences even if they aren’t shared on the Internet or repeated through text message. And sometimes, thoughts and experiences we don’t want to share with others can be just as valuable as those we do share. Even sad thoughts and negative experiences. At the end of every day, we must remind ourselves that we may not feel happy all the time. And that’s ok. As long as we’re feeling something, we’re still participating. That’s all we can ask of each other.