How I became a social media slave
Intro
The first weekend of May 2024 was a very intense time for me due to the ongoing house renovation. At the same time, we could follow the events happening during the F1 Miami Grand Prix.
I am an F1 fan. I watch all the races and, usually, I can watch all important sessions during the GP weekend. As I cannot sacrifice my family life to fit the F1 schedule, typically I watch all the sessions and most of the races on Sunday evening.
This time, due to an inappropriate timezone switch (the race start was late on Sunday evening) and my exhausting schedule I was unable to watch the GP race both on Sunday evening and for most of the Monday planning to watch it on Monday evening.
FOS vs FOMO
To my surprise, for the whole Monday, I became a social media slave. I hate spoilers so I tried to omit all the media where I could find any pieces of information or comments related to the race:
- I could not browse my Facebook wall to check the updates from my friends as I am profiled as an F1 fan and pretty often I am offered the videos from races or top news;
- I could not browse my X/Twitter feed to check the posts from other developers as I follow a couple of F1 journalists and as soon I launch the app I am exposed to any news/comments, etc;
- I could not check my RSS feed reader to check new posts from the technology blogs as I follow a couple of F1 blogs and one of the first things I would see was the post title with race result;
- I could not check any news portals as the sports section always appears in unexpected places to expose the biggest events, like the F1 race of course;
- I could not even check the weekly summary of Spanish newspapers on the website related to the football club — as we have two Spanish drivers in F1 and they always place race results in those newspapers!
Recap
That’s crazy! My fear of spoilers contrasted with the fear of missing out in such a disturbing way that I started asking questions if I became a social media slave. Is my FOMO that strong? Should the fear of spoilers impact my life that strong?