You watch the snapchat stories you view the pictures on Instagram, you chat to your friends and everyone seems to be out. A sense of uncontrollable panic fills you that something amazing could be happening right under your nose, and you’re missing it.This is what being a 19 year old in the 21^st century is like.

‘You missed out’ is a sentence that most teenagers dread to hear. It is becoming more and more apparent that FOMO is something all teenagers suffer with to one extent or another. Social media has influenced how we spend our free time and how we let everyone know about it. I refer to us as the ‘let’s not and say we did’ generation. Today I spoke to my flat mate about our plans for the weekend and the sentence ‘At least if we go out I can post something on my Instagram’ was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

Nowadays it is apparent that FOMO is not only affecting a select few. My 12 year old sister for example is someone who is one of its latest victims. When I was my sisters age, playing in the street was the highlight of my night. Yet here she is, 12 years of age, with her eyes glued to her phone endlessly scrolling through Instagram to see what her friends are doing. It’s like talking to a brick wall and by the time you manage to get her attention, you’ve completely forgot exactly what you were going to say to her. Despite the 6 year age gap, our constant needs to know exactly what is going on via social media, is the thing that pushes us apart the most.

We’re all guilty of being too attached to our phones and having our headphones in whilst someone talks to us, but is FOMO contributing and worsening this? Julianne Chapman mum of 3 stated that ‘sometimes I have to go up to them and actually pull their headphones out for them to listen’. Speaking to Julianne it became apparent that the older you get, that feeling that you’re missing out on a night out disappears. In her own words ‘when I see a friend out for a drink I think aw that’s nice but when I was younger I’d be trying to work out where they were drinking and questioning why I wasn’t out myself’ this shows that your priorities switch from FOMO to NO MORE.

Our generation sadly have the mentality that every night out will be the best, the night something happens that will be talked about for months to come. This feeling that teenagers get is not helped by celebrity culture, it is something that impacts massively to FOMO, making it hard for young people not to conform to the crowd’s mold. The hardest part about being a young person in today’s society is trying to not measure our lives against a celebrity’s Instagram post or a friend’s life event. However it’s easier said than done and it’s certainly easier to define our lives based on the virtual crowd that exists behind every social media site. In a way we are all watching, critiquing and applauding our every move so why wouldn’t we want our lives to look good in each other’s eyes.

Something that a lot of people I know have a problem with is double booking, I myself have been guilty of this. It’s the end of the week and finally Friday has arrived. You feel an instant urge to grab all your friends and hit the town. However sometimes more than one plan appears on the same night. One friend of mine has admitted: “I say yes to everything. I double, triple and even quadruple book myself. Rather than cancel, I go to everything because I don’t want to miss out’ Being a university student I find myself short of cash ,however this doesn’t stop me saying yes to every Facebook event my friends tag me in.

At the end of the day every person from every aspect of life has experienced FOMO in one way or another. The most important piece of advice to give to young people is that not everything you see on social media is how it seems. The uncomfortable emotion of FOMO is something that will go away with time, and is increasingly common. It is important to try and always feel happy and positive with whatever is what’s going on in your own life. Life isn’t perfect and neither are people, so that ‘amazing’ ‘crazy’ night out you missed a couple of weeks ago was probably your standard night at the pub. The lesson is don’t believe what you see on Instagram, kids.