FOMO(FOMO)

Short for Fear Of Missing Out: the anxiety that others are enjoying experiences or opportunities one is being excluded from. The construct was operationalized in Andrew Przybylski and colleagues’ 2013 study, which linked it to social-media use and well-being.

Limited-time offers, seat counters, live streams, and invite-only communities all deliberately tap into FOMO. Sustained exposure to high-FOMO design, however, tends to corrode trust and accelerate burnout, so the long-run LTV cost has to be weighed against any short-run conversion lift.