Suffering from FOMO (the fear of missing out)? Well you’re not alone, according to a RateHub.ca survey.
Over a quarter of the 800 Canadians surveyed admit to being afflicted by the condition.
Of those, nearly half are millennials (aged 25 to 34), 70 per cent of whom believe they’re spending too much and falling deeper into debt because of FOMO.
“They grow up expecting trips should happen, clothes should come, we should live in nice condos — but our budgets can’t always keep up,” said Alyssa Furtado, the founder of RateHub.
The first step is to admit you have a problem. And join all the people giving in to JOMO (the joy of missing out).
“It’s now all about revelling in singledom, jokes about therapy sessions, the terror of being an adult or putting it out there that hitting a club can actually be pretty hellish. And slumming it on the couch? Heaven,” Hanna Jane Parkinson wrote in The Guardian last month.
So the next time you feel lame for wanting to stay in on a Friday and binge on Netflix, “own that decision and be excited about it,” Furtado said.
Millennials could also cut back on dining out, which the survey found is one of the biggest causes of FOMO.
“When you talk to parents about the trend of eating out, it was reserved for special occasions,” Furtado pointed out.
Now, some millennials surveyed said you’d have to pay them $1,500 to stop going out to eat for three months.
You need to learn to say “no,” Furtado said. Just think of all the money you’ll save!
Scroll through the smartphone infographic below for more survey highlights: