Location broadcasting creates fear of missing out among those not invited.

Evidence

People use these applications to “check in” to a place and broadcast their location to friends, making it possible to see where friends and acquaintances are at all times. If ten friends checked into a bar, the eleventh friend would wonder why she hadn’t been invited. This feeling is recognized by many in the tech scene as FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” Deciding to have a quiet night in doing laundry can seem like the wrong decision when faced with pictures and tweets from friends doing something that looks more fun. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 594

Categorization

• DEFINE: FOMO is defined with a concrete, specific mechanism: check-ins making exclusion visible.
• SEED: An essay angle: how the visibility of others’ fun is a design feature of social platforms, not an accident — the FOMO economy.
• XREF: connects to: Fear of nonexistence pressures people to participate in surveillance platforms. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1084; People now self-censor offline behavior out of fear of online audiences — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1505

Broader Connections

• Fear of nonexistence pressures people to participate in surveillance platforms. #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1084
• People now self-censor offline behavior out of fear of online audiences #corroborates (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1505