Fear of missing out is causing a certain class of young adults to adopt some strange financial habits. Â Last weekend, my wife and I were having a quick dinner at Blaze Pizza (not as good as Kachapuri but a cheap date dinner!) before our movie started. I observed a 20 something girl at the table behind me snapping several pictures. She posed for a duck face, snapped a picture of her food and another picture taking a bite. After eating 1/2 a slice of pizza, posting her pictures to her social media and checking her “fan reactions”, she threw her mostly uneaten food away and left. She stood in line longer to acquire her dinner than she spent consuming it.
I stopped to process what I witnessed. Either this young lady wasn’t very hungry or her motivation in visiting the pizza shop was driven by something other than hunger. She was so engrossed in filing an online update of her activities that she was oblivious to her actions. At least she only wasted 8-10 dollars. Other people are paying a heavier financial toll for FOMO addiction. Is this the first financial effect of a social media obsessed culture? I hope this doesn’t develop into an area that we are forced to address in our financial planning practice but it’s a trend we will keep an eye on.Â
Scroll through the iPhone screen for the infographic (source: ratehub.com in Canada):
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