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So something like if you missed out on a concert that your friends were going to
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and they were going to have that great experience but you were not going to have it,
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>> right? And that's what over the years we started saying that's where FOMO is
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different than regret. You might regret missing the concert, right? >> But you feel FOMO if your friends went
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to the concert and you didn't. And so that's what we were really trying to
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tease apart. What does that FOMO mean? What is it that you're missing? And what
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we thought it was is you were missing being there with your friends. So you were missing part of the social history
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that was being developed around your friend group. >> Welcome to the Ripple Effect, the
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podcast that takes you on a journey through the minds of Wharton faculty. I'm your host Dan Looney and in each
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episode we'll be diving deep into the inspiration behind the groundbreaking research that Wharton professors have
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conducted and exploring how their findings resonate with the world today. The term FOMO or fear of missing out is
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one that's used quite a bit these days. It obviously has real world implications, but social media has
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allowed it to become more a part of our everyday vernacular. As for that real world, there are some important things
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to understand about FOMO when you talk about it from a business perspective. The Wharton School's Barbara Khan is
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part of a group of researchers looking at a better understanding of FOMO and for what reasons. Barbara is a marketing
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professor here at the Wharton School as well as co-host of Marketing Matters on the Wharton podcast network. Barbara,
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great to see you again. >> Yeah, it's great to be here. >> All right, so take us through this
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research because I I mean everybody now knows the term, but you look at it from a very unique perspective in this
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research. >> Well, you know, it's funny that you should say everybody knows the term
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because we started this research long, long time ago. It took us a while to get it published, but when we started,
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people didn't actually know the word. Okay. Um, it we didn't make the word up.
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It existed, but a lot of people didn't exactly know what FOMO was. And we were
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finding ourselves telling people fear of missing out, like what the letter stood
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for. So, we started doing descriptive research on it. And we wanted actually to be the first one to publish anything
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on FOMO. So, we'd get like all the citations coming to us, but as luck would have it, we just couldn't get
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through the publication process. And so over over time now, like I seriously think it's been 10 years we've been
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working on it. By the time we finally publish it, it is true that a lot of people know what FOMO means now. And so
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what we found ourselves doing is defining a specific type of FOMO so that we could get a publication. So like a
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lot of it was this academic we really need to do something new. Yeah. And so people use FOMO to mean a whole lot of
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different things now. And we wanted to specifically differentiate between FOMO and the idea of regret. So some people I
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think use the word FOMO, but they just regret not being there. >> Sure. >> And we wanted to define our FOMO as
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specifically not regret um and as specifically having to do with social media. So social media exacerbates it.
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And we also found from all our work over the 10 years that FOMO tended to be used
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more when it had to do with social groups, right, than when it had to do with just missing an event, per se. So
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what you were feeling FOMO was about something that you missed that your friends were doing that you weren't part
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of, right? And what we found is that's what people really meant when they were
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saying FOMO and that's how it differentiated from regret. So something like if you missed out on a concert that
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your friends were going to and they were going to have that great experience but
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you were not going to have it, >> right? And that's what over the years we
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started saying that's where FOMO is different than regret. You might regret missing the concert, right?
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>> But you feel FOMO if your friends went to the concert and you didn't. And so
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that's what we were really trying to tease apart. What does that FOMO mean? What is it that you're missing? And what
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we thought it was is you were missing being there with your friends, right? So you were missing part of the social
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history that was being developed around your friend group. >> And I'm guessing the component of social
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media then comes in when those friends are maybe posting pictures or posting videos from the event that you miss out
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on. You see it and it just kind of it doubles the the angst that you feel. >> Right. So that's what ended up being
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what we started to study. It was something it's not just missing an event. It's missing specifically an
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event that your friends have that you're not at and it becomes exacerbated because you're seeing all these pictures
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and you're imagining what went on that you weren't a part of. >> So there's an element of that you're
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looking at specifically kind of at the psychology behind a lot of this, >> right? And so just before I get to the
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business implications of it, it took us forever to publish this. So we're not on
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publishing on business yet, but we have thought about it and we have run a bunch
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of studies on it. But there was a couple things that was interesting about this.
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So the first thing is it's not about the event. So you can feel FOMO even for a
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negative event, right? >> Um so like you could your friends might go to a funeral and you regret not being
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there because your friends were bonding over things that happened at the funeral. So it's it's not the event per
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se, it's the bonding. The other thing that we discovered the more we did research on it was that it's not really
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a fear. It's more like an anxiety. And the difference is is an anxiety is kind
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of cognitive. It's the way you think about it. So you're imagining what you're missing out and it may be you're
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not maybe missing out on that much. It's just that you think you're missing out
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on it. And that was also kind of an interesting thing. So when we were doing the research, I remember the thing that
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motivated me to do it is one of my daughter's friends was talking about how she wanted to go to the shore with my
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daughter and her friends. And unfortunately, she had to go to this beautiful wedding and this gorgeous
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place and she was going to miss out on it. And it was that was my thought like that's crazy. You're going to a
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beautiful place. You can go to the shore anytime you want. Why are you so worried
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about it? And the more you probe, it was because she was worried about her friends having fun or making, you know,
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social stories that she wasn't going to be part of. >> So part of the research I mentioned did
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kind of play into the impact of being at an event like a concert. You also have part of this research that looks at, you
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know, kind of being or not being at a retreat. >> Yeah. Yeah. So it could be it doesn't
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really the point is if you're not looking at the regret of missing the event it could be a negative event it
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could be a positive event it could be anything it could be a business event and then what we manipulated in that
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case is what was happening at the retreat like if there were things you were going to retreat and you were
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self-improving and working on yourself and you know everything was independent you're not going to feel as much FOMO as
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if you were going to a retreat or you missed out on a retreat that your friends went to and the point of it was
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to develop connections and social interactions. Right? >> So, the two things that would make you
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ex experience the FOMO at something like a retreat, the retreat doesn't matter,
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right? Because it's not the event, is that your friends went, not a group of
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strangers. And that what they were doing was talking to each other and perhaps finding new things out, telling stories,
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making new things up that you weren't part of. Is there an element then of FOMO that as you said it can be kind of
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a negative event where you know you didn't really want to go to it anyway and maybe your friends didn't want to go
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to it but they still went to it and you did not >> right then you might feel FOMO like yeah
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so now you're going a whole lot of like crazy stuff and the thing about it is we
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ran a bunch of experiments to talk about you know like what if your friend missed
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the event what if it wasn't you that missed the event what was your if your friend missed it do you think they'd be
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missing out on a lot the stuff and then you have the wherewithal to say, "Nah,
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probably not. It's just one event. Probably not that much happened. You're
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still part of the friend group." >> Yeah. >> But when it comes to you missing it out,
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now you imagine, oh yes, a lot more happened. >> What's amazing is, and we've just gone
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through it here in the first few minutes, but there are so many different potential scenarios that could play out
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where these elements of FOMO could be in. I mean, you've even mentioned in the
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research that it doesn't necessarily have to be a friends group, but it could
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be like like-minded individuals, people who are fans of a country music artist or a rock star or whoever it might be.
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>> And they're not you're not friends with them, but you're all fans of that
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person. >> And that's where we're going to go to when we get to the business
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applications. So, a lot of what's happening with brands now are they're creating brand identities, brand
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community, and a lot of is experiential. So it's not just buying the branded
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product, it's being part of the branded experience. And so our hypothesis is
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what you're kind of suggesting is that if you feel like you're part of a
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branded community and then you miss out on some events, maybe you don't feel
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like your membership in that community is as strong as it would be if you had gone. And that's the FOMO you might end
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up feeling. >> So how then do businesses think about FOMO? and how much do they think about
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it from the psychological avenue that we've just been kind of laying out here?
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>> Yeah, you know, I haven't we haven't finished all that research. You know,
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first we just wanted to establish that there was some FOMO in a branded community and that's it's kind of hard
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to get. You have to control all these things. And we were doing it around there was used to be a Lululemon store
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here near campus and we were doing it around Lululemon had gym classes and things in the store. And so we were
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using that as part of the Lulu community to kind of manipulate and it was hard. You had to run the gym class. You had
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people in and out. You had to control all this. So we were still just trying to find whether or not those things that
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people felt that. And then we were trying to determine, well, should the brand encourage it or not encourage it?
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Like maybe feeling that FOMO is good because it makes you not want to miss the next event,
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>> but maybe it's bad because it makes you over time feel disengaged from the
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community, right? >> So like we weren't quite sure, we haven't done that study yet to figure
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out how is the FOMO going to work. Can we play on it in a good way or is it a bad thing? Is it surprising then to see
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the idea of FOMO play out in so many different avenues? I mean, it it it just seems like it can go in so many
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different directions. >> Well, like I said, we've been doing this for a long time and over the years,
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people have taken the term and meant it used it to mean a lot of different things. And we came back and really
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really tightly identified it as this kind of thing now. And so whether or not when you say FOMO today, you may not
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mean exactly what I'm saying it means now. You could mean regret or you can mean these other things. In fact, you're
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even seeing people now talk about JOMO, you know, the joy of missing out. Like I
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don't want to be everything. Yeah. So like you can see it flip like it's, you
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know, it's just crazy to worry about it all the time. And it's it's, you know,
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attach it's attached to this whole idea of social media. Yeah. that like you're
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looking at everything and so you're all these things you're missing, all these
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feelings you're missing. Maybe it's better if you just don't look at it.
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>> And there are avenues where people think, okay, social media is such a great thing of being able to provide us
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this information, but there is the potential of the negative as well. >> Yeah. So that's kind of so when we start
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playing with this and the brand implications, it's is it a good idea to show on the website, you know, other
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people doing things that that might encourage your feelings of FOMO or should you show the activity, show the
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product? Like you can kind of think there's a lot of different things that people might take away when they see an
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event they missed, right? And I guess what we're showing is we're parsing out
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some of these different things. and a firm can think about that as either positive or negative to encourage those
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feelings and thoughts. >> But the challenge though isn't it partly because one person's feeling about a a
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you know specific scenario playing out would be different from many other people how they feel about it. And so
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the company the the firm that works with it really has to be nimble to be able to
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deal with all kinds of different reactions. >> Yeah. So we purposely stayed away from
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those kind of things. There has been a lot of work in the FOMO over these 10 years other people publish and what
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you're talking about is individual differences. Yeah. And so we have a little bit of that is people who are
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more anxious about their social activity feel more FOMO than people who aren't.
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So that's an individual difference. But we were trying not to focus on individual differences. Trying to focus
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on main events that people would feel FOMO about or not. And some of the things that we were identifying is it
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has to be part of a social group you care about. Yeah. And so our extension to business is will those feelings be as
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intense if it's a brand community? You know, if it's a brand you feel about and
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you might argue yes and no, you don't know. And then um the other thing we were thinking about it is it's an
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anxiety. It's a little bit imagined. It's not actually true, you know. So
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people just see this stuff and then they start to spiral out and make, you know,
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make assumptions about it. So like that's another thing brands can either try to tamper down or they can try to
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encourage it if they think the FOMO is good. Like you might imagine if if the brand thinks feeling a little FOMO,
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that's good. You won't miss our next event. >> Right. Right. >> What then do you think or how do you
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think you want to then take this research into that next realm focusing on business? Where do you think you you
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hope that it'll take you? >> Well, I mean, the first thing we have to establish is the, you know, those ground
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rules. We have to we have to establish. Do people when they're part of a brand
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community feel the same sense of FOMO when they miss out on a branded event? Like that we haven't proved yet. We have
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some preliminary evidence that shows that they do, but it also it depends on whether it's a small brand or a big
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brand. Like it it's not true for all brands. So that's kind of an interesting
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idea if we're moving towards in retail this idea of more customer experiences
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and things like that. When you miss a customer experience, does that make you want to go to it more the next time or
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does it make you feel disengaged and less and less part of the community because they're telling brand narratives
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that you're not part of? Right. >> That's kind of where we're thinking it
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might go. And you could certainly think it might it might depend on the type of brand, your relationship with the brand,
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um the type of people who are at the brand. Yeah. >> You know, and it's and I want it to be
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different than just regret. Like for example, if there's a branded community
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event and some big celebrities there, Taylor Swift is there, you would definitely feel regret, you know, but
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you might not feel what we're calling FOMO, >> you know, and so we want to make that
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distinction, too. Um, and it because the FOMO is more about the social connection
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you feel to the group that surrounds the [music] brand, >> right, Barbara, great to see you again.
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Thanks very much. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Barbara Khan, marketing professor here
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at the Wharton School and co-host of the Marketing Matters podcast. Thank you for
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listening to The Ripple Effect. We hope you found this episode informative and engaging. Don't forget to subscribe and
00:15:27
leave us a review so that we can continue to bring you the best insight from the Wharton School.