You log into social media and you see this picture of some friends at a party

你登入社交媒體，然後你看到這張照片，照片上是一些朋友在開派對。

Scroll down, and here's a video of a friend cliff diving in Cancun.

往下滑，是另個朋友在坎昆懸崖跳水的影片。

A number of friends are talking about garden cop, and you haven't seen it yet.

不少朋友都在談論《花園警察》這部電影，而你還沒有看過。

And now you start feeling something called FOMO, or fear of missing out.

你開始感覺到一種叫做FOMO東西哦，或者說錯失恐懼。

FOMO is the anxiety we experience when we feel there's something exciting happening elsewhere and we're not a part of it.

FOMO是一種焦慮，發生在有很興奮的事發生時，我們卻沒參與到。

It's been around for a long time, but these days it's triggered mostly by posts on social media.

它存在很久了，但現今主要是由社交媒體上的貼文所引發的。

Social media gives us instant access to the activity of our friends.

社交媒體讓我們可以即時瞭解朋友的動態。

That's what it's there for, and this could be a good thing, but it also makes it all too easy for us to compare our lives to theirs.

這就是它存在的意義，可能是一件好事，但它也讓我們太容易就將自己的生活與他人的做比較。

This could lead us to second guessing our decisions and feeling insecure in general.

這可能會導致我們質疑自己的決定或沒安全感。

It can even get to the point when there's a looming sense of FOMO, even when we're not online.

甚至就算不上線，也會有 FOMO的感覺逼近。

So how do we kick this FOMO?

那我們該怎麼擺脫FOMO呢？

An answer that might quickly spring to mind is to simply quit social media.

最快想到的答案可能是就不要用社交媒體。

But that's not practical for a lot of people.

但這對很多人來說很不實際。

Instead of quitting, you can try limiting your time on it or even just taking a few days off.

與其都不用，你可以嘗試限制使用時間，或者幾天不要用。

This could give you a chance to focus on what's important in your life and enjoy the things that you are doing without comparing them to others.

這讓你能專注於生活中重要的事，享受你正在做的，而不與他人比較。

The lives of our friends do sometimes look pretty exciting online, but let's put some quotation marks around the word "lives."

網路上朋友們的生活有時確實很精彩，但我們要給生活這個字加個引號。

Their social media activity isn't their actual life per se.

他們社交媒體上的活動並不是他們實際生活本身。

It's more of a highlight reel of exciting things they've posted to contribute to their online identity.

更多的是他們為了自己的網絡身份而發佈的精彩內容。

It's easy to see these highlights and think, "My life just isn't as exciting as there's."

很容易碰到這些重點內容，就會想：「我的生活沒有他們那麼精彩。」

But what we're usually not seeing is what's going on behind the scenes, the negative things or the boring routine of their day-to- day lives.

但我們通常沒看到背面，那些負面的事情或者是無聊的日常生活。

They may post something awesome, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just a short snippet of their day.

他們可能會發些很酷的東西，但在一堆事中，這只是他們一天中的一個短暫片段。

The odds are when they're not out doing these awesome things, they probably experienced just as much FOMO as you do.

當他們沒有去做那些很讚的事時，他們可能跟你一樣經歷了FOMO。