In today’s social media driven world, the internet is a primary form of communication. It’s all too easy to make assumptions based on what you see on a screen. The fear of being left out can create the illusion that other people are enjoying life far more than you, doing more things than you. This simply is not the case.
Around 75% of people ages 17-22 reported experiencing heightened loneliness according to a poll conducted by Time.com. Those who lived alone when stay at home orders were enacted spent increasing amounts of time all by themselves resulting in detrimental effects to their mental health.
Junior Elizabeth Skinner has experienced firsthand how an effort to stay safe can result in the looming fear that everything is happening without you. As an individual working hard to prevent the spread of Covid, Skinner often finds herself stuck between helping others and joining them.
“A lot of times it means staying home when I’d rather be out with people, making me feel left out more often than normal,” Skinner said.
Even if there are no large group events happening, seeing them proceed from an outside perspective can alter the scale at which they appear.
“I often find myself feeling left out of groups, even if it’s just a couple of people hanging out after an event,” Skinner said.
This is an extremely common phenomenon. In fact, the Time.com article study showed that 25% of women and 30% of men expressed feeling a heightened sense of loneliness since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic.
The moral of the story is that loneliness, fear of missing out, and skewed perception of events, are all fairly normal. Many people during this time are in that same boat, and it is not a rare occurrence.
“I think a lot of us tend to tell ourselves we aren’t wanted around when we see others together on social media, but it’s usually not the case,” Skinner said.
