Another heatwave in the UK - here's how to cool down your FOMO

In this hot summer, Instagram’s vision of perfection has been unrelenting. Polka dot dresses pose outside Wimbledon, crochet cardigans grin at Glastonbury, and the three stripes of Adidas at the Oasis reunion make rude hand gestures at me. Ha, this is the only concert of its kind ever. Have fun listening to AI-generated music because that’s all you will have once this tour is over and culture dies forever. I heard they were a bit mean, but this summer, it has felt like the Gallagher brothers have a personal vendetta against me.

The fear of missing out (FOMO) has always existed. In real life, most of us have lots to be grateful for, but social media forces us to endure the shiniest, smiliest moments of other people’s lives, making us focus on what we don’t have.

Even if your friends were not there, you can still feel a painful stab of regret for having missed out on something that seemingly everyone else attended. Who knew watching ten seconds of Charli XCX on several people’s stories could make me dissect my life choices and everything that went wrong thus far, not to witness this magic in person.

For Generation Z particularly, our lives are interwoven with relentless exposure to perfect pictures, and there are blurred lines between “real life” and the version on our phones. Whether it’s influencers who promote the unattainable, or people you met once and now see their day-to-day lives, growing up with social media causes a constant tension.

The guidance around avoiding FOMO can feel a bit pathetic but it is helpful. Psychologists urge us to take breaks from “compare and despair cycles” of social media scrolling and focus on being present in the moment. There is also some satisfaction to be gained by not being there: the money you saved and the germs you missed out on by skipping the squalid camping conditions.

The irony is that everyone experiences FOMO, even the people who attend the events you wish you were there for. They went to the festival but there was a catastrophic clash of bands. They attended Wimbledon but it was plagued by queues and overpriced strawberries. They sat in the beer garden and, OK, maybe that was quite nice.

This might be our last heatwave of the year, so don’t let Jenny from sixth form’s Marbella trip or influencers’ hardest efforts cast clouds over your summer.

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Emily Conn is a Producer at LBC.

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