Clear Space Living Blog
Forget FOMO – embrace JOMO
- Karen Kingston
The term FOMO (the Fear of Missing Out) was coined in 2004, the same year Facebook was launched. Since then, the rise of social media has given FOMO an entirely new dimension. Social media has connected us in many beneficial ways, but it can also compel people to stay online far more than is healthy for them out of fear of missing something exciting or interesting.
JOMO is the antidote. It means enjoying what you’re doing in the here and now rather than constantly checking social media to see what everybody else is doing.
Example:
Person #1: I had a great day, climbed a hill and didn’t check Facebook.
Person #2: Good day?
Person #1: Yeah, pure JOMO.
Many digital apps are designed to keep us addicted
Steve Jobs knew very well how compelling digital devices and apps can be, and he took steps to protect his own children from them. ‘We limit how much technology our kids use at home,’ he told reporter Nick Bilton when he asked about their use of iPads. Bill Gates took a similar approach. He didn’t let any of his three children have a mobile phone until they were 14 years old.
Now current and ex-Silicon Valley tech executives are coming clean and speaking out about this. Many admit they limit their children’s screen-time and have opted to send them to low-tech schools where blackboards and chalk are the norm and technology is rarely, if ever, used. It speaks volumes that people who know the technology industry from the inside choose to limit their own children’s exposure to it.
‘I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children’, was the New York Times Quotation of the Day on October 29, 2018, by Athena Chavarria, a former executive assistant at Facebook. What people in the tech sector know, more than anyone else, is how destructively addictive digital devices can be. They should do. They designed the darn things to be that way!
A wonderful upshot of this new trend is that digital detoxing has now become a thing. Instead of it being cool to be connected 24/7, it’s starting to become cooler to take a break from time to time.
Full transparency
People often ask me if I have a phone. I do own one but I use it very differently to how other people use theirs.
I got my first phone in 1997 — a sweet little monochrome Nokia 3810 that had the lowest radiofrequency radiation of any available at that time. I’ve been through various upgrades since then and now have an Android smartphone.
No one except my husband knows my number and the websites that require me to use a phone for 2-factor authentication logon (2FA). I only use my phone to call or message someone if I’m lost, running late, or have an emergency of some kind, which is so rare I don’t remember the last time I did this.
Everything else can wait until I get home to my landline phone or computer, or if I’m travelling, my laptop. My computer runs on a wired ethernet connection, not Wi-Fi, and all devices have Fiara anti-blue light filters.
I do use social media, but only for about 20 minutes each week to post links to my blogs and reply to messages from people seeking help of some kind. And I do use email, but never check for messages in the morning, except on rare occasions when I’m expecting something important. When I take vacations, I totally unplug and don’t use any devices at all.
So how do I manage, you may wonder? Perfectly well. I’m more tech savvy than most of the people I know and very connected to the world. The difference is that I choose when to use the devices I own. I decided long ago that I would run them rather than them running me.
The effects of digital addiction
It used to be that high-income parents gave their children the advantage by equipping them with the latest devices, but parents are now increasingly having to consider how much screen exposure is healthy for children and how best to set limits. Dumbphones are starting to be seen as a smarter option than smartphones, and there is a growing awareness that children need to have a healthy balance between screen-based and real-world experiences.
The title of a very well-researched article published in The Atlantic in September 2017 asks: Have smartphones destroyed a generation? The author, Jean M. Twenge, has studied generational differences for 25 years and cites a Monitoring The Future survey in the US that has questioned eighth- and tenth-graders each year since 1991 and twelfth-graders each year since 1975. She says the findings of the survey show a clear association between greater screen use and lower reported wellbeing:
Teens who spend more time than average on screen activities are more likely to be unhappy, and those who spend more time than average on non-screen activities are more likely to be happy.
Digging deeper, she concludes that ‘Eighth-graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent’ and ‘Teens who spend three hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as making a suicide plan.’
Many children are so addicted to their phones that checking them is the last thing they do before sleep and the first thing they do when they wake up.
A poll of 1,550 15-year-olds in England, conducted in 2026 by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), found that 37% of them hardly ever leave their bedrooms at weekends or on weekdays after school. Tabby Fitzgerald, senior researcher at the CSJ, commented that ‘We are raising a “bedroom generation” of teenagers who leave school, shut the door and disappear to scroll. The consequences can be seen in deteriorating mental health, rising obesity and a generation missing the friendships, independence and resilience that previous generations enjoyed.’
Sleep deprivation is also a chronic problem, not just among children and teenagers but among device-addicted adults too who stay up late using screens and leave their devices turned on, allowing notification streams that disturb their sleep.
The solution
Smartphones give us access to galaxies of information. They are a portal to entertainment, a vehicle for communication, a multimedia recording device, and a vast technological resource. It’s the way they are used that is the problem. Instead of making people more awakened and smarter, over-dependence makes them sleepier and dumber.
As with all great innovations, the technology itself is not inherently bad. It can be used for good or evil. With this in mind, ex-Google designer Tristan Harris is now spearheading The Center For Humane Technology, a non-profit organization with a stated mission of being ‘dedicated to ensuring that today’s most consequential technologies, such as AI and social media, actually serve humanity.’
He and his team have created an excellent resource for those who want to take back control of their lives. Click here if you want to know more: Take Control of Your Social Media Use.
And what will you do with all the time you no longer waste? Remember talking to people? Nurturing relationships? Having new experiences (without needing to photograph or video them)? Delving into life’s mysteries? Discovering deeper levels of yourself? Or myriad other ways to live life to the full instead of endlessly surfing the surface? That’s JOMO — the joy of missing out on pointless titillation that does you no good at all so you have time for the things in life that truly matter.
Copyright © Clear Space Living Ltd 2018, updated 2022 & 2026
Related articles
The truth about smartphone addiction
Screen-time statistics
Related course
Clear Your Paper and Digital Clutter
Like to read more articles like this?
Subscribe to my monthly newsletters to receive news, articles, special offers, and more by email. And I promise you – no junk mail ever.
KAREN KINGSTON
Leading expert in Clutter Clearing,
Space Clearing & Conscious Living
About me
Upcoming online courses
Highly effective interactive courses.
Accessible 24/7 from anywhere in the world.
5 comments on “Forget FOMO – embrace JOMO”
Wow. Fantastic article. Thankyou Karen! You have so eloquently summed up how I feel & my concerns about technology today & our young teenagers & children (and adults too!). I have worked with technology for a number of years and have been very aware of the change in behaviour. I have not been immune myself but at age 30 I realised how it was affecting me and changed how I used my devices – so they weren’t running me! A part time passion of mine is tutoring people on how to operate their devices (smartphones, tablets, computers) and during this, I also inform of the options to remove or reduce the constant barrage of ‘pings’, ‘beeps’ & notifications, all competiting for their attention. I enjoy sharing with people that there are other ways, that we don’t have to be distracted salves to our devices. I never push this on people but just offer the information of these options. Although I often do get a ‘yes please switch them off, it’s driving me nuts!’
It is positive to hear things are changing & about movments like Time Well Spent.
Bring on the cool of the JOMO!
Much love,
Carly
When iphones first came out my daughter’s best friend was given one before she started college. She showed it to me and it was magical! Thank goodness it was so expensive and I never bought one. I still use a flip phone, which does everything I want a phone to do — allows me to make and receive calls, and get text messages from my 30-something kids. I can’t say for sure what keeps me from getting a smart phone. I just have an intuitive feeling that it is the best thing for me not to be connected 24/7. In recent years I’ve noticed that people don’t pity my flip phone, but actually remark it might be better if they used one instead of a smart phone.
Karen, thank you so much for this article.
Over 20 years ago, only doctors (and other people on duty) had to carry pagers that would interrupt them constantly with beeping noise while they were ‘on call’. I felt sorry for them – they always look stressed. Smart phones are like pagers from the past, I think.
We homeschooled. Before the age of 11, our kids were allowed a 1/2 hour of computer time, once a week. As they got older, we upped it to an hour. It was such a small amount of exposure that most often they forgot for weeks at a time. Friends and family feared that they would never be computer literate.
At the age of fifteen, as a sophomore, our son began public education. Here, they were required to use iPads for their schoolwork. Within the first semester, he had completely circumvented the institution’s filters and had for himself full access to anything he wanted on the internet.
As a fourteen year old freshman, our daughter dived into the screen and seemed to rarely come up for air. In my opinion she was becoming addicted. iPads were new and the school had no technical apps that would allow us to set limits on the machine’s usage. Other parents accepted that this was novel and untested and let it go. My husband and I had such heated arguments about whether to limit screen time that I wondered if it would break our marriage.
I noticed as well that what had been fairly nice handwriting began deteriorating. At least our kids could write legibly, though. When asked for parent names and numbers, so that I could put together a pot luck for a school event, I seriously could not read about eighty percent of what was submitted. I had to ask our children to translate.
I prefer that the use of technology in schools be limited until the age of sixteen and then used not to replace, but to support capabilities already developed. By then, there is maturation in the brain that was previously missing and young people are more able to self-regulate. Lord knows, the instruments are made for easy navigation, so I am sure that their operation would be quickly comprehended.
Love the JOMO. JOy of Missing Out…JOy of the MOment…it all works for me!
One of my sons noticed the negative effect on manners brought on by smartphones. Prior to their widespread use, youngsters would arrange verbally to meet up with each other & do so. After, there was a frequent tendency to cancel just before the agreed time, with some feeble excuse, just because you could. Very annoying for anyone who showed up as arranged.