Gen Z Rejects FoMO Identity but Keeps Scrolling Anyway

Nobody wants to be the person who cannot put the phone down, and for young Indonesians that reluctance has become a point of pride. New research finds that members of Generation Z in the country actively reject the FoMO Identity, treating the label as an insult that implies impulsive, unthinking behavior. Yet when the same young people describe their daily routines, their habits tell a different story: constant TikTok checks, impulse buys from live shopping streams, and the anxious urge to keep up with viral trends so they have something to talk about with friends.

The study comes from Muhammad Rio Fariza and colleagues at Telkom University and was published in the journal SN Social Sciences, as reported by ScienMag. The team first surveyed 121 Gen Z respondents in Jakarta and Bandung, two of Indonesia's most digitally saturated cities, then sat down with 18 informants for in-depth interviews about their scrolling and shopping routines. The result is what the authors call the FoMO paradox: a generation that symbolically disowns the fear of missing out while remaining embedded in the platform culture that produces it.

The label they will not wear

When asked directly, the survey group overwhelmingly refused to describe themselves as FoMO-driven consumers, according to the study abstract on Springer. Read through the lens of social identity theory, the framework the authors use, the FoMO label has hardened into a stigmatized category. To carry it is to be cast as someone who buys things without thinking and chases trends blindly, according to the study authors — a direct hit on the self-image of digital natives who pride themselves on being savvy, deliberate and critically aware online.

Rejecting the label is itself identity work, the researchers argue. Young consumers want to belong to the category of the digitally competent: people who use platforms strategically rather than being used by them. Denying FoMO becomes a way to claim status inside platform culture, not a way to exit it. The FoMO Identity is disowned even as the underlying routines continue, which is exactly what makes the pattern a paradox rather than plain contradiction.

What the scrolling actually looks like

The interviews told a more complicated story. Moving from self-description to concrete accounts of everyday behavior, the same young people who rejected the label described consumption routines that look remarkably like it, as reported by ScienMag. They spoke of checking TikTok and other platforms constantly, of buying products first encountered in live shopping streams, and of feeling compelled to stay current with viral trends so they would have something to discuss with friends. The practices persisted even as the identity was disowned: FoMO has not disappeared, according to the study authors, it has gone underground.

Live shopping is the clearest stage for the paradox. In these real-time streams, hosts present goods while viewers ask questions and buy with a few taps, and stepping away risks missing a flash discount or a sold-out item. The format compresses the distance between seeing and buying to nearly zero, and its time-limited structure manufactures urgency by design. Viewers described these purchases as spontaneous yet rational — consumption framed as considered even when triggered by engineered scarcity, another quiet turn of the paradox.

The algorithm is the other engine. Recommendation systems built on collaborative filtering surface an endless stream of novel products, experiences and social moments, and in such an environment the fear of missing out stops being only an inner state and becomes a structural feature of the feed. Industry surveys cited by the authors indicate that a substantial share of Indonesian Gen Z consumers have bought products through live shopping formats, and that scrolling ranks as the cohort's preferred leisure activity. Literacy is no shield here: a large share of the survey group reported high digital literacy, which may explain the confidence of their denials without explaining their habits.

FoMO is not what it used to be

The findings mark a break from earlier FoMO research, which treated the fear of missing out as an individual trait — something a person has more or less of — and linked it to smartphone addiction and diminished well-being. The new study argues that inside platform culture, FoMO operates less as a private fear and more as a social practice: part of the ongoing work of staying relevant in networks where visibility is currency. Missing out threatens one's standing in the conversational economy of peers, so young consumers perform rationality while navigating systems that reward urgency.

The stigma around the label seems to have grown faster than the behavior has shrunk. A separate survey of 638 Indonesian teenagers found that around 64.6 percent said they experienced FoMO on social media, according to a paper in the American Journal of Economic and Management Business Research. Set against the new study's symbolic rejection, the contrast is telling: the fear is as common as ever, but admitting it has become socially costly.

Why it matters beyond Indonesia

For marketers, the implication is blunt. Campaigns that explicitly invoke the fear of missing out may now backfire with a cohort that resents the label, even as the same urgency keeps working through algorithmic feeds, live events and social proof. The playbook still functions; only the name has become unsayable.

For anyone worried about digital well-being, the lesson cuts deeper. Interventions that target FoMO as an admitted problem will miss the people most affected — precisely because they are the least willing to name it. That is the practical edge of the paradox beyond Indonesia: the FoMO Identity can be rejected in words while the feed keeps rebuilding it in practice. Understanding platform culture, the authors argue, means looking past what young consumers say about themselves and watching the everyday routines — and the algorithms — that shape what they do.

Some caution is warranted. Every respondent lived in one of two major cities, among Indonesia's most digitally saturated metros, so the paradox may look different in less connected regions. The study also leans on what people say about themselves, the very self-reports it shows to be unreliable — though its mixed-method design, pairing the survey with in-depth interviews, is built to catch exactly that gap. For more on screens and well-being, explore the Mind & Body topic — including why middle schoolers’ AI friendships are leaving them lonelier.