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Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Summer can feel like a time to embrace the YOLO mantra. That of course stands for you only live once, but while some people are having a carefree few months of fun in the sun, other people might be suffering from another four-letter acronym, and that's FOMO, F-O-M-O. Stands for fear of missing out, and it can feel especially acute in the summer.

Social media makes it seem like everyone is on vacation in Europe, or partying on a beach, or having a fun barbecue without you. You might feel jealous, maybe lonely, and left unchecked, a serious case of FOMO can really lead to anxiety and depression. How can we combat those feelings? Joining me now is Matt Lundquist, founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. Hey Matt, welcome.

Matt Lundquist: It's so great to be here, Kousha.

Kousha Navidar: It's great to have you. Listeners, we want to hear from you. Have you ever experienced summertime FOMO, fear of missing out? Does social media play a factor in those feelings for you? What strategies have you found effective for combating FOMO, and to stop comparing your summer plans to others? We're taking calls on all things FOMO, all things fear of missing out. We're at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433 WNYC. Matt Lundquist is here to help us wade through this topic. His comments do not constitute medical advice but we are here to talk to you 212-433-9692.

Matt, we all know that FOMO means fear of missing out but let's dive a little deeper. In your practice what kinds of feelings or behaviors can FOMO provoke?

Matt Lundquist: Sure. I think all kinds of things. I think you're correct this time of year, and your correct social media certainly has a role in that. It really comes down to two categories. There's the experience of feeling like other people are living sexier, more extravagant, more interesting lives. Often that fear, not always, but tends to trade around money, or social status and access to certain kinds of privileged events. Anybody that lives in New York, we're surrounded by people who are even really interesting, really wealthy people are surrounded by people who are even more interesting and even wealthier than them.

The top of that pyramid is endlessly narrow. It's right there in our faces. We live very close together. You walk by a bar, you walk by an event, you just turn on your phone and look at social media and you hear but that's one category.

The other category I think is one that can be more personal, which is a sense of not just, other fancier people are doing fancy things without me, but my friends, people in my friend group, or maybe my family are doing some things without me. Maybe they didn't invite me, or maybe I didn't have access, I had to work, or something was in the way either by their choice to disclude me or the circumstance of discluding me, that feeling very personal and being disruptive. I think each of those expressions of FOMO can look different but also can play out differently. Of course, they're so dependent on particular folks and what's going on for them.

Kousha Navidar: In that first case I hear a lot of envy at the heart of it. You say that the pyramid gets endlessly more narrow as you go up which I think is such a great metaphor to use there, but in the second one there seems to be a real sense of isolation, is what I hear. Would you say that's fair?

Matt Lundquist: Isolation and I think fundamentally a fear of being discluded. I would suggest if we wanted to take a second and look at maybe some of the deeper psychology, and again, not medical advice and this is so different in different situations, but broadly speaking I think we all have within us an experience and one that most of us can find our way back to in childhood of this fear of being discluded, of being excluded from a social group. Of course, the earliest most important social group for most of us is our family.

Fundamentally, what that comes from is an appreciation as humans of how dependent we are on other people socially for protection and companionship, and particularly for children. Often, I think this raises experiences of being left out or a fear of being left out that can go back to being a young child but has a kind of primitive psychology to it, which is this experience of feeling like, "I'm going to lose these social connections that are so vital for me for my sense of community and survival really." There's a lot that goes on there, I think, psychologically.

Kousha Navidar: Well, listeners we want to hear from you. Have you experienced summertime FOMO, which is fear of missing out? Does social media play a factor in those feelings for you? I'm especially interested in hearing people who want to talk about strategies that they have found, that effectively combat FOMO and ways to stop comparing your summer place to others, your summer plans to others.

We're taking calls on all things FOMO so give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692. We're here with Matt Lundquist who's the founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. We're talking about how to integrate how to handle FOMO that you might feel especially during the summertime. Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692, or you can hit us up on social on X or on Instagram or at All Of It, WNYC.

Matt, we've been thinking about FOMO in terms of missing out on plans but can it also be a fear of missing out on life experiences like having a relationship, or a great job, or other milestone achievements that it seems like other people are having all the time?

Matt Lundquist: For sure. I don't want to be the word police in terms of the application of that, but certainly an experience that people talk to me about and I've certainly heard the word applied to it is a sense of, "I've missed the boat. Other people my age are doing things, other people are having life events." You named two of the most common ones that I think can be really quite distressing.

Other people are in relationships so their relationships are further along, perhaps they're getting married or more fully partnered, and other people are having kids. It can be very painful to not have some of those accomplishments or to feel stifled at work, to feel like peers are having more success at work. I think certainly that's a space where these feelings can be invoked.

Kousha Navidar: We just got this text that I think brings up an another element that we certainly have been talking about since 2020. It says, "Talk about FOMO. How about all the immunocompromised folks or people still trying not to catch endless COVID infections? Society has left them out all year round." What do you think, Matt?

Matt Lundquist: I think that example is an important example as it stands, but if we open up a category of circumstances that cause missing out, financial limitations, things like people's immigration status and the way that that affects certain risk-taking that they're able to do or certain things that they're simply able to engage in, economic access. Different kinds of disability, or immuno status I think is a perfect example of that and something that can be a really relevant issue. I'm so glad that your reader pointed that out, your text [unintelligible 00:07:56]

Kousha Navidar: I just want to say thanks for sending that text. If you have thoughts- if you're listening right now and you have thoughts, you have a situation that's making you feel FOMO, or if you have a way that you are trying to combat that feeling, give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692. We have another text that just came in that says, "The way I combat it--" and it being FOMO here, "The way I combat it is deleting social media, reminding myself that I can have as much fun as anyone else is, and it's all about the mindset. Usually, the perceived experiences aren't really as fun as they seem."

This hits the nail on the head for one of the biggest topics of this segment which is social media here and I'm so happy that I saw this text. Matt, what do you make of that text?

Matt Lundquist: When you study psychology and pay attention to certain social phenomenon, one of things you realize is that some of the things that we talk about in the context of psychology or psychotherapy that can be troubling for people are also, unfortunately, opportunities for marketers and social media platforms. I think this is maybe a prime example of that, which is I was thinking in preparing to be on the show about the old tagline which we still hear plenty, "Hurry now so you don't miss out. There's a limited-time offer to buy this thing that we're selling."

Social media, obviously, a huge part of the way it generates income, getting eyeballs on ads. Creating a sense of, "There's something missing in my life, there's something wrong with me," I think serves exactly the function of bringing eyeballs to those spaces and selling products. One is to have a savvy awareness of that. This listener that texted you obviously took one extreme solution which I'm not against. I think there's a case to be made for altogether abstaining for social media, but certainly short of that I know a lot of listeners access and follow your show through social media, there's certainly an argument to be made that that's a meaningful way to connect, but I think that to set limits on it is important, to have an understanding that it is a platform that a lot of researchers feel is designed to draw attention and to evoke just this very feeling as a way of keeping you hooked.

Kousha Navidar: Well, let's say that you choose not to delete social media, for instance, and you're still going to be a part of it. Are there things that you need to keep in mind or ways that you can handle the emotions that come up when you're scrolling through your Instagram or TikTok feeds? How do you put perspective in there for yourself?

Matt Lundquist: I think perspective is a tricky one. Again, I think we're up against some of the brilliant designers and engineers of these platforms that want to keep your attention, and they're incentivized to do that. I think a big one that everyone talks about and one that I just simply want to co-sign is to understand the difference between a curated reality,

a kind of Instagram life or a kind of Instagram relationship, an Instagram vacation and the sense that that doesn't necessarily always align with what reality is, but it's entertainment and entertainment often displays a narrow and distorted view of reality because that's what's appealing.

If you're able to be in that space and understand that as a kind of fantasy then that seems like a fine activity. I would say I think it's important to remember that social media is meant to feel good, it's meant to feel entertaining. If you're spending time doing it and it's not feeling those ways, then it's time to look at whether or not it's worth taking a break.

Kousha Navidar: The listener that that sent that text did a follow up here he said, "I did mean just temporarily deleting the apps. It helps me take some time away. Although I do enjoy having social media in general." I think that idea of like, how do you integrate it into your life? How do you make it something where you control it instead of it controlling you? Listeners, we're talking about FOMO, the fear of missing out, especially during summer when you see so many people posting about what seems to be wonderful things that you yourself aren't experiencing. How do you deal with it?

We're here with Matt Lundquist, who is the founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. Give us a call at 212-433-9692. I'd love to go to Nancy in Rockville Center. Hey, Nancy, welcome to the show.

Nancy: Hi. Thank you. This is a very interesting subject. I was just listening about the part about social media and I find that interesting because sometimes people post things that aren't exactly the way they really are, so that's one thing, but it's a good idea to put it aside like you're saying. I'm a widow and I was a young-ish widow. Now I'm not as young-ish, but I found myself booted out of a lot of relationships and people just disappeared on me because there's a whole stigma around that, so I had to find my own way.

Currently I'm in a writing group. I love going places by myself. I have some really good friends that I go to theater, we go to museums, we go to the beach. It took me a while to get past not being in a couple, and that is really a stigma. A lot of couples didn't want me around, and frankly, after a while, I was like, "Well, I don't want to be around them either." You have to create your own path.

Social media can be a great tool. I reconnected with a lot of friends by way of Facebook and Instagram who I now actually do things with, another friend who's a widow, another friend who's divorced, or just people I knew from high school. It's a practice, it's almost like a meditation. You have to practice not being jealous. I have a friend who travels constantly. If I look at that, I'll go crazy, rather, I'm happy for her. You have to be happy for-

Kousha Navidar: Nancy, I think that's such an important perspective that you're bringing into the conversation here. Back then, when you were first starting to feel excluded, what was your step 1? Where did you find the path starting to unfurl free? Was it joining that writing group, or was it something different?

Nancy: I have to laugh about it now because I had to prove to myself that I was okay. My husband had just passed away and the first thing I did was I went to a jazz at Lincoln Center by myself, which is something I would've done with him. It was a weird thing to do. I got a little drunk, but I enjoyed it, and it was my beginning of seeing that, "You can do this by yourself and you can do things alone and it's okay."

Like I said, I have a couple really great friends. We do things together, not all the time though. I just saw three Broadway plays, two musicals and a play, by myself and there was nothing bad about that. In fact, I met someone online, a young woman, who said, "Oh, I love going places by myself. I don't have to deal with other people's stuff. I could just show up."

Kousha Navidar: Nancy.

Nancy: How that was-

Kousha Navidar: Yes, go ahead.

Nancy: -I went back to my therapist, actually. I'd been in therapy a long time, and I went back to her to help me with this loss of not just my husband, but of all these people that suddenly vanished, and I embraced something I was never really good at. It was that I have an amazing family by way of my husband, and I really embraced them in a way I didn't think I could. I wasn't that oriented towards family.

Kousha Navidar: Nancy, I'm going to have to pause you there just for time, but we really appreciate your call and sharing your story. I'm sure that a lot of people out there will find it very helpful. We got to take a break. We're here with Matt Lundquist. When we come back, we're going to take more of your calls, talk about some more strategies to deal with FOMO. We'll be right back.

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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar here with Matt Lundquist, who's the founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy, and we're talking about FOMO, which is the fear of missing out. Listeners, we're taking your calls and your text. Do you experience FOMO, especially summer FOMO? Because we know at this time of year there's a lot going on social media, a lot of people having exciting plans. Does social media play a factor for you in those feelings? What strategies do you have for dealing with those feelings?

Give us a call at 212-433-9692. That's 212-433 WNYC. We'd love to hear from you.

We just got a text, Matt, that I'd love to get your take on. It says, "I don't have FOMO, but I find the people in my family that do exhausting. We can never keep it simple or spontaneous. Everything is an event, constant having to go to every new restaurant or best vacation. It's all the same after a while. Anyway, this year I stayed home on two of my holiday breaks, even though it upset some. I needed some alone time so much." I'm wondering if this is actually a healthy text of saying setting up boundaries. What do you think?

Matt Lundquist: I think we've maybe invented a new concept here, which is FOMO by proxy, which is your texter having this experience of having to accommodate other people's sense of this. I think this is a perfect example of saying no, and setting a boundary in that way.

I'll cosign, Kousha, what you're saying, which is I think that trying to accommodate somebody else's way of operating in the world that maybe isn't so healthy for them, and that doesn't need to come necessarily with a judgment for them, but a judgment for you, it makes a lot of sense. I think getting wrapped up in someone else's sense that they need to always be at the event or doing the cool thing or doing something better can be its own kind of drag. It seems like your listener has come up with a great solution, which is to just participate in that some other time.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Jess, in Manhattan, you're on the show. Hi. Welcome.

Jess: Hi. I heard when I was first coming on something about distorted reality of social media. When you are in a good mood, you should look at things that you are worried that might make you upset, be in a good mood, be wishful for the people that are going away, but also in summer, there's a lot more you can do outside. I think winter is more difficult when people go on ski trips and everything because in summer there's so many places to bring your kids for free.

You can go out, you can not even be on your phone at all. Sitting at home, you don't have to. I really think that it's an opportunity to not believe that people are really posing for their social media, which I think a lot of the times it's just some people's jobs to just make their life look really great, and that's what they want people to perceive. You can not look at it when you're in a bad mood. Look at it to wish them well and bring your kids outside. That's it.

Kousha Navidar: Jess, thanks so much for that call. We just got this text. It says, Matt, this talks to what you were pointing out earlier, "With age, my FOMO has turned into JOMO, joy of missing out." There's a couple [chuckles] of funny emojis after that. I just want to give a shoutout to that caller. When I was listening to Jess, I was thinking about how you have to be in the right mindset when you're looking at social media.

It makes me think of kids and teens because I think FOMO can be particularly acute for that category. They're having an especially hard mental health time right now. According to the CDC, and this is a quote, "Youth in the US are experiencing a mental health crisis with rates of depression increasingly dramatically over the past few years." There's a 2023 CDC report that found in 2021 three in five US teen girls felt persistently sad or hopeless. That's 57%. Break that down a little bit for us, Matt. Why do you think teens are particularly vulnerable?

Matt Lundquist: We really see it in our practice. We talk to parents of kids and teens all the time and certainly work with a lot of kids in teens and hear from them. I think COVID was not-- if not the whole story there, but was certainly a big part of that. There are young people who missed graduation, missed full years of their high school experience, missed certain rites of passages.

I'm really thinking about that with all of this conversation. A piece of this is, sometimes we do miss out on things and some of those things are meaningful. We can talk about a Gucci bag or a trip to Europe, but we can also talk about missing out on spending time with a parent that's died or a loved one who we've lost. We can talk about missing an experience because of a disability or being immunocompromised and some of the loss of COVID.

I think if we're going to talk about missing out, we have to acknowledge that it does happen that we miss out. A piece of the emotional work around this is to acknowledge that and to grieve. I think young people do need help with that among help with a lot of other things, which is to have adults and caring people around them who can receive their frustration and acknowledge and be with them through a process of the disappointments of opportunities that are missed.

That's one of a whole lot of factors that are contributing to some of those mental health statistics you're talking about. I think grief is an important one, and really being adults who can do that with them rather than bringing our own reluctance to this or our own FOMO by proxy as we were saying. Being able to say, "Yes, I think we lost something there. I'm sorry."

Kousha Navidar: That last part I want to break down a little bit. What does being there look like if you're an adult and you see a teen struggling?

Matt Lundquist: Well, I think one of the big challenges that I talk with parents about and your last caller was talking about, how many things are free or more accessible in the summer. To speak to the economic piece of this, which isn't the whole story, I think sometimes what parents try to do, and it comes from just such an understandable and really loving place, is when your child says, "Hey, I feel like I'm missing out. We didn't get ice cream," or, "Everybody else went to the Hamptons, but we're going to the city beach," or, "Other people have these nice things that we don't have."

Often what parents try to do, understandably, is to give their kid those things or give their kid some kind of version of those things. Again, when you can do that, that seems great, but I think to also acknowledge, yes, there's a loss here, and whether we could do something dramatic to try to make up for that or compensate. Nonetheless, one of the things that we do need to learn to do is to miss out, is to learn to be without. Obviously your caller who mentioned JOMO seems to have mastered that. This idea of learning to tolerate loss and disappointment and missing out is an important part of being a whole human.

Kousha Navidar: Let's go to Linda in New Jersey. Hey, Linda. It sounds like you have a routine you like to go through.

Linda: Yes. This is a great conversation. I'm a teacher in middle school, so I am very familiar with FOMO. I live it every day with my students. A routine that I learned from an adult when I was eight years old, and I'm far from eight, was your hands are clenched, your fists are clenched, and you just take out, one by one, the things you're thankful for. You unfurl your fingers, "Thankful for this. I'm thankful for this." They can be small things, big things, and all of a sudden, you've got 10 things you're thankful for and your hands are open and you're free from FOMO.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, that's wonderful. Do you practice that with your students at all, Linda?

Linda: I do that. I tell my students that practice. Still to this day, I'm decades from eight, I still do that myself because your previous caller, the widow, I was widowed very young, her explanation of what happens to friends and your life is very true to the truth, very close to the truth. People just drop you. I had to deal with a lot of FOMO. I had a wonderful husband.

One last thing I'd like to mention, as a school, all of our parents and teachers are reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. I would recommend that, I think we have to really understand our young people are dealing with FOMO in a way that, as adults, we have other agencies, we have other methods, we have other experiences, and we must look after our younger generation. This is not just a conversation point. This is a life-and-death issue and we must-

Kousha Navidar: Linda, thank you so much for that. I appreciate that. I got to pause you there just for time, but thank you for that book recommendation and for that exercise. It brings me to that idea of gratitude, Matt, that I think is so crucial.

Matt Lundquist: Of course.

Kousha Navidar: You want to talk about that a little bit?

Matt Lundquist: Yes. I'm thinking about gratitude and I think her exercise is a great example of that. I would take this even more broadly, which is, I think when we're focused on what we're missing out on, of course we're not focused on the opportunities that do, in fact, exist. You're not invited to an event. You could decide to spend those hours feeling sad. People do that, and sometimes that's a struggle that people work through. To think about a plan B, "What's an event, what's something that fits with budget that I am invited to? Who are the people in my life?"

I think your caller earlier who was talking about her experience of losing her husband, what she was eventually able to do was, one, discover lots of meaningful things that she could do on her own, and also discover some new people, even as she lost some old friends in that process. Again, that needs to be grieved. It's not, "Instead of," it's not, "Don't feel bad, think of great things you're grateful for." It does feel bad. This is a loss. It is disappointing to miss out on something. Also think about the possibilities for making meaning that exist, because, of course, for most of us they are everywhere,

Kousha Navidar: I'm looking at the clock and we got to wrap up soon, but I want to make sure that I ask before we go out. What are some signs that your FOMO might be something that you might want to seek professional help to address when it reaches the point that you might need a helping hand there?

Matt Lundquist: One of things that we talk about a lot is when people experience something that's got a lot of buzz in the zeitgeist, and FOMO is a great example, it's a word, a concept that you say, "Oh, I'm having these difficult feelings," and I think, " Oh, yes. A lot of people have that. It's called FOMO." One of the downsides of that is that it can hide when somebody, as you're raising, is having a real particular struggle with that.

I think that there's an extreme version of this that probably we might want to call something else that might speak to losses from early life or experiences of being perhaps rejected by family members or not fully included in the ways that we need. Children need to healthily develop and grow into full adults, and that needs a particular kind of attention. I think probably some good therapy is a space to do that and something beyond some of these great tips that your callers and texters are recommending.

Kousha Navidar: Thank you for that. Thanks to everyone who did call. We have Matt Lundquist, who is the founder and clinical director of Tribeca Therapy. Thanks for sitting with us, taking the calls and for all that helpful information.

Matt Lundquist: So nice to be here.

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