From FOMO to JOMO On Media Fasts and Mood Management
Author: Ken Homer Issue: 2023-11-15
From FOMO to JOMO – On Media Fasts and Mood Management
by Ken Homer
“News” is the plural of new. News used to report on what’s new in the world. Today however, many news outlets focus on the frothy foam atop the waves of current events rather than examining the deep currents that give rise to those waves. Much of the news is focused on the ephemeral rather than the enduring which contributes to our amnesic society. Yet, like many people I know, I find myself riveted to the news by the same force of fascination that makes it so difficult to look away from a terrible accident.
The thought of not following the news evokes a powerful fear – that of missing out. The first time I did a media fast I was gripped by overpowering FOMO. The year was 1999 and I was at the first of several four-day intensives in my year-long professional coaching certification program. As a requirement for acceptance into the program I had to review a list of 60 books and choose ten that I had not read. I had read about 40 of the books on the list so I was able to find the required number. I was thrilled when I picked up the bag with the books and felt the weight of them. Then came a shock.
“Ken, you are not going to read those books. Instead, you are going to spend the next six months with no TV (not a problem, I got rid of my TV in 1990 and never bought another one), no newspapers, no magazines, no books, no comics (could I survive without For Better or For Worse?!), no online reading, and no radio. You can listen to whatever music you have at home. The only reading you are allowed is whatever you need to read for work.”
Egad! This struck me as cruel and unusual punishment. A kind of dread took hold of me, and I felt sure that I would soon become an uninformed idiot incapable of conversing about current events or much else for that matter. I protested to no avail. The assignment was firm. I couldn’t recall a single day of my life since I had learned how to read when I didn’t read something – well, there were those two weeks on Bali when my temp soared to 105ºF due to dengue fever, but I gave myself a pass for that. I glumly carried the books home, looked longingly at their spines, and put them on the shelf.
However, the assignment proved to be a revelation! Within a few days I started to feel my mood shifting and after a couple of weeks I was nearly giddy with a newfound lightness of being. I was happier, less reactive, and had more mental energy and focus than I recalled experiencing for some time. FOMO had given way to JOMO – the joy of missing out!
It took me a while to realize that my addiction to news had, over the years, been slowly contributing to a mood of roiling anger and resentment that was mostly out of my conscious awareness but that often spilled over into my daily life. While I was up on the news, I also felt powerless to do much about any of the things that were making headlines. I was angry at all the stupid decisions, celebrity gossip, and sensationalism that make up the bulk of the stories that most media outlets feature. Many of us are familiar with the “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality that drives advertising revenue, and thus, biases what gets reported towards what drives profitability not what informs nor what provokes deep reflection and productive conversation on the part of the citizenry about how we can create healthier communities and live in harmony with each other all the other species we share this planet with.
But wait a minute! Being a news junkie isn’t a bad thing, is it? I mean, news junkies are people who are curious, informed, thoughtful, reflective, and inquiring, how could that be a bad thing? While on my media fast I noticed that my need to stay informed about current events did indeed bear some of the hallmarks of addiction. I spent hours each day immersed in reading the latest developments in politics, science, ecology, technology, and of local, national, and international news. When I found a juicy story, I’d get a dopamine hit and if I wasn’t informed, I felt restless and uneasy. Then, when I went cold turkey, I definitely suffered from withdrawal. Much to my chagrin, I realized that a news addict is still an addict. Since addiction has burned, scarred, and withered branches on both sides of my family tree this was a startling realization. I never thought of my interest in news as something that could limit me in so many ways until I set it aside for a while.
Divorcing myself from the strum und drang of the media for six months opened a portal in my mind that alerted me to the heavy mental and emotional price that those of us who are obsessive news junkies pay.
Being assigned that first media fast nearly 25 years ago proved to be a great gift to me. Over the intervening years, I have periodically done media fasts whenever I have noticed that the anger and powerlessness I feel about the state of the world is affecting my ability to enjoy my life or if it derails me from focusing on how I can best create the conditions for wellbeing all around me. The difference these days is that rather than a total media fast, I still read books and periodicals on subjects that interest me while eschewing the daily news. Poetry often trumps headlines on these fasts, and I am reminded of William Carlos Williams (who was a poet by avocation and a doctor by vocation and who knew something about healing and the soul) who said: It is difficult to get the news from poetry yet, people die every day for lack of what is found there.
Recently, I traveled to Italy for 18 days and I made a conscious decision to not keep up with the headlines about the wars raging in Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza, the ongoing drama of the MAGA-controlled House, and the ever-deepening meta-crisis. For me, it is precisely at moments like this, when everything seems to assume an outsized urgency and my need to know what is happening burns like a fire in my mind, that I find it most helpful to turn off the news and allow myself to be fully in my life, to deeply engage the questions that I feel are worth asking. Questions that the news rarely explores. Questions that lead to a deepening of understanding – which is different mode of being than what flows from following after questions that lead to a broadening of knowledge. The Tao Te Ching offers wise counsel on the matter:
Trying to understand is like straining through muddy water. Have the patience to wait! Be still and allow the mud to settle.So often these days the state of the world confuses me, upsets me, depresses me, and flummoxes me. I want to be effective in the world, to leave it just a little better for my having passed this way. In times like these, when great turmoil is the order of the day, I find that absorbing too much news has the opposite effect causing me to feel helpless and ineffectual. So, for now, I am ignoring the screaming headlines of death and destruction, of climate chaos, and of endless suffering, and instead I am practicing being present to my friends, my family, and my life. I am speaking less and listening more. I’m reading more poetry and more books, walking more in nature, and taking in less and less news. I’m thinking about what it takes to create the conditions for wellbeing at every level of fractal in which human behavior has a role to play.
May all beings be freed from suffering and harm – especially the news-inflicted kind.
Related:
- Ken Homer (author)
- 2023 (year)
- Topics: Health and Wellbeing