Fear of missing out, or FoMO, is commonly described as that anxious feeling you get when you think other people might be having a good time without you. Excessive FoMO is closely related to symptoms of behavioural addiction. It often leads to undesirable behaviour such as the constant checking of social media, even in an inappropriate context, like while driving, and becoming overly preoccupied with reactions to online posts and messages.
The digital economy has been getting a lot of attention, with increasingly strong headlines offering apocalyptic as well as breathtakingly exciting scenarios. Some warn of job losses due to automation, some wonder at the things digital technology can do. And then there’s real scepticism about whether this will translate into delivering to people who need it most.
We used to be told not to get into stranger’s cars and definitely not meet strangers from the internet. (It’s…
Humans are more connected to each other than ever, thanks to smartphones, the web and social media. At the same time, loneliness is a huge and growing social problem.
Iran and other nations have waged a stealth cyberwar against the United States for at least the past decade, largely targeting not the government itself but, rather, critical infrastructure companies. This threat to the private sector will get much worse before it gets better and businesses need to be prepared to deal with it.
If you’re like most workers, you don’t spend 100% of your time at the office doing what you’re supposed to be doing. In fact, on average, U.S. workers spend about 10% of their work day surfing the internet, emailing friends or shopping online. This so-called cyberloafing costs employers up to US$85 billion a year.
This may be the one time that South Africa ranks higher than the US for overall resident happiness — because the 21 films from the legendary animation house Studio Ghibli are coming exclusively to Netflix. Outside of the US and Japan.
The number of active users of Facebook (those people who have logged onto the site in the previous month) has reached a historic high of 2.45 billion. To put this in some context, approximately 32% of the global population now use the social media platform, and the trend line of participation is still going up.
The world is starting to see the gradual decline of Facebook, with 15 million US users dropping off between 2017 and last year. Nonetheless, Facebook remains the largest social network in the world.
Each one of us could be watching an online video at some point on any given day. We could be…