OPINION
FOMO FUELS ANXIETY “Fear of Missing Out” is linked to negative impacts on health. BY RACHEL DOCTOR REPORTER
(photo by MCT Campus)
Clinton Cannot Strike Sanders Hillary Clinton cannot win with Bernie Company and Lehman Brothers, according to opensecrets.org. Herbert Sandler, former CEO Sanders still in the race. BY TONI MATHIS REPORTER
It all started with the flip of a coin between delegates. A few flips and the win went to Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Clinton may have eked out a win, but the true victory belonged to Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders. Only eight out of 72 polls, according to fivethirtyeight.com, gave the nod to Sanders. But he proved the pollsters wrong. Even his lead in New Hampshire slowly mushroomed to 61 percent this week, reported by CNNpolitics.com. Sanders is gaining momentum and it’s clear to see that he should be the next presidential candidate. This is a candidate who is authentic, not a candidate that panders to the people. Clinton is her own worst enemy. Back in July, she posted a Snapchat which later went viral in the form of a vine. Clinton said she was chillin’ in Cedar Rapids. To go along with it, she sells koozies and a wide assortment of other options that read: ‘More like Chillary Clinton. Amirite?.’ Some examples of her pandering include her own campaign calling Clinton an abuela to Latinos and when she changed her Twitter logo to represent Kwanza. Then in January on the Ellen Show, she hit rock bottom. The presidential candidate showed she was cool to all those millennials and our lost generation by whipping and doing the nae-nae on “Ellen.” But Bernie is not a try-hard. He is comfortable with his gray hair. When he goes on the road, he is authentic and doesn’t lapse into southern twang when speaking in front of a southern group. He doesn’t try to conform to the audience, but persuades his audience to his point of view. Next follow the money. Clinton’s top donors include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase &
of World Savings Bank, and hedge fund manager Donald Sussman both gave $1.5 million to Clinton, according to the Huffington Post. Sanders on the other hand, says he doesn’t want money from billionaires. His plans include breaking up the big banks. In fact, his top donors are Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union, United Auto Workers and the National Education Association, also according to opensecrets.org. Clinton has to woo her voters with social media instead of her positions on policy. There are several issues that Clinton has not fully addressed. She does not go into detail with her stances including immigration, violent crimes and military funding. She only states that she will change them to be better. By trying to win the campaign through centering her strategy around social media, she draws attention from the issues that young voters should care about. Voters should demand strong stances. Sanders has always stayed true to his positions and never has switched them because of a majority. Sanders wants the world to know his policies even if most of the world does not agree. Clinton and honesty don’t exactly go hand in hand. Look at the email debacle. She could have ended this whole affair in 2014 with transparency in the investigation and admission that she made a mistake. But it drags on and on with more information trickling out. But Sanders is honest. He looks forward for what is best for all Americans. He is a true democratic candidate. Overall, the real democratic candidate should be Sanders. He has a pulse on the young voters. He believes in policies that will bring all Americans to the table. If Clinton wants to stay in the race, she should start focusing on the entire nation, not a percent of it. She is a paper candidate.
Many face the constant dilemma of choosing a life with fewer obligations and more fun or one with more stability and more responsibility. There’s the fear that further down the road in one’s life, there will be regrets of not having done more. No one wants to have regrets like wishing they had pursued our dreams further, invested more time with loved ones, taken a dream trip or seen more of this world. Recently a new fear has arisen, we have fallen into a fear of missing out on experiences or events in life. This fear, has become known as “FOMO,” meaning the “Fear of Missing Out”. While it may sound like a joke at first, FOMO is an serious sickness that is affecting nearly 56 percent of people in our society according to mylife.com. Social media is a large aspect of everyday life in this generation, but at the same time it has displaced humanity from living in the moment and constantly puts society into the realms of what our friends are doing without us. On sites such as Facebook, within every 60 seconds 510 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated and 136,000 photos are uploaded, according to The Social Skinny. The constant ability to have a connection at the fingertips combined with the mass amount of posts made makes it more difficult to avoid the feelings of anxiety and being left out associated with FOMO. Humans are naturally apprehensive about not being included. Saying “no” to an opportunity could mean missing out on something that one would regret not participating in. Patterns determine the way the brain functions and forms habits, specifically triggers according to Medium.com. A trigger is something that sets off a memory or transports one back to something they have already experienced according to psychcentral.com Social media sites are aware of this, and sites such as Facebook use the concept of triggers to their advantage in their designs. Through several redesigns, one thing has remained constant: the notification alert. The small red circle on top of the blue globe holds indications of how many notification users have that are waiting to be checked. Keeping these notifications creates a trigger or habit in the human brain to constantly desire to check them, which encourages attachment to social media. FOMO has also become associated with a perceived low social rank, which negatively impacts health. Along with the perceived low social rank, comes anxiety and depression. But FOMO is more than just a case of people feeling unsatisfactory. People with high levels of FOMO are more likely to send and read text messages while driving and to get distracted by social media during their college classes, according to a study by ScienceDirect.com. Although it is much easier said than done, focusing on living in the moment is healthier than dwelling in the past. The dreaded sense or not being included or that sense of being forgotten has no positive effects, but happens too often.. The constant connection we have available to us makes fighting FoMo and its effects challenging. The sense of putting social lives on platforms for the follows, the likes, or views on snapchat has no real benefit. When the tables are turned, sitting at home alone rewatching that snapchat story with frustration doesn’t change the situation. Why should you care whether or not someone else’s night will be better or more talked about on Monday than your own? Put the phone down, and enjoy the time of living in the moment. LE JOURNAL February 2016
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