In a recent study conducted by Washington State University (United States), the majority of people with a high degree of “joy to miss something” or JOMO (for its acronym in English, ‘joy of missing out’) also had high levels of social anxiety.
The term JOMO has become popular as a healthy enjoyment of solitude in almost direct opposition to negative FOMO, the “fear of missing out” people can have when they see others having fun experiences without them, as explained above. In an analysis of two samples of adults, the researchers found conflicting results when it came to JOMO, with evidence that there is some anxiety behind the joy.
“In general, a lot of people like to be connected,” says Professor Chris Barry, lead author of the paper published in Telematics and Informatics Reports. “In trying to evaluate JOMO, we found that some people they enjoyed getting lostnot because of the solitude or because of the zen and calming experience of being able to regroup, but rather to avoid social interaction, “he warned.
This could also explain the correlation found between JOMO and social media use, a result that surprised the researchers, who expected that people who wanted to miss out on social events not worry about checking what their friends and family were up to. According to Barry, one possible explanation is that for those with social anxiety, social media can seem like a less intense way to engage than interacting in person.
Barry and his co-authors conducted surveys with two different groups of about 500 participants each, recruited through Amazon’s ‘MTurk’ crowdsourcing platform. To measure JOMO, the researchers asked a series of questions about the enjoyment of spending time alone and disconnection, such as whether participants liked having time for self-reflection and whether they were glad to see their friends having a good time even though they weren’t. were with them. The survey also included questions designed to assess loneliness, social anxiety, social media use, personality traits, and life satisfaction.
The study of the first sample revealed connections between those who had a high level of JOMO with the use of social media and life satisfaction, but social anxiety had the strongest correlation.
With these mixed results, the team designed a second study to see if they could find a group of people with high levels of JOMO but no social anxiety. They found it, but that group was small, it represented about 10 percent of the participants. Despite not having social anxiety, this high JOMO group had moderate feelings of loneliness.
Relationship with low self-esteem?
Although other research has linked the fear of missing out with low self-esteem and loneliness, these results indicate that the experience of the joy of missing out is less clear cut. Barry has suggested that the JOMO might not be a stable state or linked to personality traits, but rather a momentary phase of the need to disconnect.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions, like ‘what’s a good dose of social interaction versus disconnection?’ I think that’s going to differ for each person,” Barry said.
Previous research has shown that, for people with anxiety, continued exposure to what makes them anxious can help reduce stress, So, for social anxiety sufferers, more interaction is better, not less. “Motives matter,” Barry says. Why do people lose things? If it’s because they need to recharge their batteries, maybe that’s a good thing. If they try to avoid something, it’s probably not healthy in the long run,” he concluded.