Leaving Twitter, dealing with social media withdrawals, and finding joy after living with FOMO
The concept of JOMO, or the joy of missing out, is gaining popularity on social media as an antidote to FOMO (the fear of missing out).
I love that for us. We’re constantly bombarded with “THIS IS HAPPENING NOW! CARE ABOUT IT!” messaging, it’s exhausting. We’re trading our sanity for brand engagement and social media hype.
Thankfully, I’ve mentally tapped out of all of that since 2020 (yeah, that was too much), and now I’m blissfully living in a state of JOMO.
Here are a couple of things I’ve missed out on earlier in life and why I’m happy about it:
- I haven’t watched The Lord of The Rings movies…
This is your cue to scream at me in the comments. Instead, I’m happy that this year I’m reading the book for the first time for a book club. And then I’ll watch the trilogy, and it’ll be a fresh new epic journey for me. - I hadn’t played Skyrim until 2023. I never had a computer that could run new-ish games until recently. I took two weeks off around Christmas and bought the Special Edition. It was the most fun I’ve had with a game in years.
- I don’t have kids yet. Some of the people I went to school with have three kids, and they’re all attending school now. I appreciate the ability to always tap out for as long as I want whenever I’m dealing with sensory issues. Absolutely no FOMO about this.
But here’s a little story about, hopefully, my last experience with FOMO:
FOMO in 280 Characters
A few years ago, I quit the app formerly known as Twitter (jk, everyone still calls it that). Well, technically, I still have an account, but it’s just there when I need it to browse for work and to save my username… And to occasionally scream about video games and Star Wars.
Anyway.
I deleted my big account at the peak of my involvement in a VERY passionate kpop fandom… which is basically any kpop fandom, but that’s besides the point.
Originally, I joined to keep up with fansites posting photos of my bias. I was a Tumblr girlie (I should really talk about that another time), and I loved collecting high-resolution photos of my fav. However, I had to do that by scooping many, MANY blogs. Oftentimes, the blogs took days or even weeks to update with the latest photos. And everyone got them from Twitter anyway, so hey, might as well join and follow the fansites myself.
And that’s when the chaos began.
See, the problem is that:
X/Twitter is a platform for engaging in digital battles with strangers on the internet.
I don’t care what the tagline is; that’s just marketing. Half the users on the bird app are there to fight some other group of bird app users. It’s just not a very happy place.
It’s excellent, however, for keeping up with the news as it happens live. I’ll avoid commenting on the quality and accuracy of said news, especially in the last couple of years.
I was using the app mainly for engaging with others in my fandom, and I quickly learned a few things:
- Non-K-pop fans hate you by default. You’re not a person, but part of an amalgamation of annoying fancam-spamming bots. I ended up on blocklists used by “casuals” that protected them from a severe allergic reaction at the sight of an Asian guy with colorful hair.
- Other K-pop fandoms hate you even more. You are into XYZ, thus you are an enemy™. My username ended up on even more blacklists.
- Everyone is argumentative, impatient, and anxious to always post post post. If you’re not, you’re either lacking self-awareness or you’ll become like that soon. Or you’re the 1% with an ounce of sanity left. Lucker.
Long story short, I became the annoying kpop fan who was everywhere, always posting. Sometimes the fandom liked me because I created pretty fanart. Sometimes I had to private my account because I said a new song is trash, and this, naturally, meant a hoard of aggressive messages came swirling my way.
It was really fun!
And SO exhausting.
Not only does this dystopian online hellscape create such a sense of addiction (if you’re not here all the time, YOU’RE MISSING OUT), but it was an overall negative space to begin with.
Sure, you could create your own little bubble where you’re tweeting about your obscure interests that absolutely nobody cares about (like I’m doing with my writing here, ha!) But that defeats the whole purpose of the website. After all, it’s an arena for competitive sh*tposting.
Social Media Withdrawals: FOMO or Boredom?
Here’s the thing: I’ve never been addicted to my phone. Or social media, or any other device.
My phone is 6 years old, and the battery still lasts about 3 days because I just don’t care for it. The only reason I have a smartphone is because it’s basically a fancy camera that I can use to call and text my two friends.
Over the years, I’ve left a digital footprint in many online spaces. I was an early adopter of YouTube; I tried MySpace and Facebook (hate both, sue me); I’ve been on various fashion and styling platforms; I spent nearly 10 years on Tumblr; I’ve had a Blogger art blog; my art on Instagram and related shops paid my bills for a short while… it’s a lot.
Now I’m regurgitating my thoughts on Medium and my own journaling and literature blog.
I love the internet!
But every now and again, a platform, hobby, or interest runs its course. So just quit, right?
Right.
I don’t know what I lost interest in first: the kpop group or the fandom?
Surely I became fed up with certain aspects of fandom, but I was tolerant for a while now. We all love this one thing that unites us… allegedly.
After one last controversial opinion and a wave of nonsense in my DMs I had enough. Deactivate. BYE!
The Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is this unsettling feeling that your peers are experiencing something better or more significant.
While you’re living your miserable ORDINARY life, people are out there… doing THINGS! And you’re BORED! Could life possibly get worse than this!?
Constant social media scrolling is a common sign of FOMO, which can negatively impact both social and work relationships.
When I left my fandom, I felt guilt.
The Guilt of Missing Out
Fandoms thrive on a strong sense of personal involvement, commitment, and devotion to your favorite thing. And when that group wasn’t my favorite thing, I couldn’t keep existing in that online space anymore. I either had to leave quietly, with a brief message to my closest friends, or stay there and rebrand while still getting questions like “You don’t like XYZ anymore?” for years to come.
I still get messages about my fanart to this day. It’s been OVER FIVE YEARS.
The main thing I was afraid of was losing connection with the friends I made in that community.
For all the virtual enemies who hated me for my opinions on idols’ dance skills, I made just as many friends. We bonded over our shared love for music and found other things to like about each other along the way too.
Naturally, people drift apart, and you can’t force friendships. Sometimes, connections happen due to circumstance (school, university, work) or proximity (same neighborhood, city, state, country). Other times, relationships find their footing in a common passion for a hobby, topic, ideology, etc.
As a person who doesn’t fit in the neurotypical box of expectations, I am more interested in things, activities, and subjects. It’s challenging to have meaningful social interactions when you’re struggling to find a mutually interesting topic of discussion.
So any friendship built on the foundation of a thing that is no longer a special interest is suddenly on very shaky ground. Surely it doesn’t feel like that for the other party, and I’ve done a great disservice to people who have been nothing but kind to me in the past. My ability to go completely nonverbal, both irl and digitally, has unfortunately disconnected me from many people I truly value. It’s not intentional, but struggling with social interaction is something most people can’t comprehend unless experienced firsthand.
Finding The Joy of Missing Out
The fear of missing out on friendships that were or could have been, social media growth, the possibility of a freelance art career — all of this plagued my busy mind, guilt-tripping me with extra anxiety (as if I didn’t have enough of it already).
But here’s the truth: I was missing out more by spending all of my time on social media. I couldn’t outsource my entire existence to apps. I couldn’t have a fulfilling human experience, even if I had a vivid social life online.
I’ve always been a big planner. Big dreams, big ambitions, and a very future-focused approach to life. I’m not plagued by regretful thoughts about my past, yet I’m constantly anxious about what’s coming next. Can’t tell you which one is first, but I can tell you what’s better: staying present.
Living in the present is something you often hear about when someone is trying to preach mindfulness. My spiritual brain did a whole lot of research and found that my root chakra was blocked while my crown was extremely overactive. Basically, I was living in my head.
Learning how to stay present is part of the cure for FOMO. You can’t miss out on anything you don’t want to be involved with. Here’s how I applied this to overcome FOMO:
- First of all, take good care of your mind; don’t allow just anything to take up headspace rent-free, you deserve better. Become a greedy landlord to your own brain, only high-value thoughts should be allowed to live there.
- Focus on YOUR life. I know the universe is ginormous, but your world is much smaller. Zoom aaaallll the way into your little fraction of the world and shift your energy in that space. This is your microcosmos. Live in it.
- Have digital hygiene. If you haven’t developed boundaries with your phone by now , set them. Yes, it’s an object, I don’t care. Doomscrolling literally makes you feel like trash every time, admit it. At the very least, maintain constant awareness that you’re doing it, then you can start rooting out the habit of mindless scrolling.
Living in the current moment didn’t make my life majestically amazing all of a sudden. I am boring. I am beyond ordinary. But finding JOMO has invited several positive improvements into my life:
- I am much less anxious. I don’t worry about what’s happening online at all. I log in and log out without worry whenever I want.
- I spend much less time in front of a screen. My eyes are grateful.
- I feel more fulfilled in my present. I’m no longer constantly dissatisfied and aiming for some unachievable ideal living situation.
- I still feel the longing to visit Santorini when everyone is posting their vacation pics in the summer… But then I remember that it’s just an overcrowded and expensive volcanic rock. Then I feel a bit better. #deinfluencing
Conclusion
Time is the highest currency. It’s irredeemable, and its value is immeasurable (ironic, isn’t it?) It’s up to us to decide how we spend it — fretting about irrelevant things we missed out on, or experiencing the joy of being present.
Nowadays, I spend my limited existence on Earth cultivating my creativity as much as possible. If capitalism didn’t need me to save it daily with my very essential services, I’d be spending all of my time reading my favorite books, writing, painting, creating.
Shifting your focus to what you have rather than what you don’t have makes it easier to appreciate the positives in life. Try it for a bit. You don’t have to deinstall all of your apps. Just forget about them for a bit. It’ll be difficult at first, and then you won’t remember that they exist. Because they’re irrelevant. Unlike your here and now.
Featured image by Andrew Guan on Unsplash
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