The Neuroscience of FOMO

Why Your Brain Hates Being Left Out

Imagine your brain as a finely tuned orchestra. Most of the time, the instruments — thoughts, emotions, sensations — play in harmony. But when you see a photo of friends out without you, one instrument suddenly goes off-key. A discordant note of anxiety, envy, and curiosity ripples through the mind. That, in essence, is the fear of missing out (FOMO). Though it feels like a modern problem born of smartphones and social media, its roots lie deep within our neural wiring.

When we experience exclusion — whether from a group chat, a social event, or even an unreturned message — the brain responds as if we have suffered a physical injury. Neuroscientists have found that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a region involved in processing both physical and emotional pain, becomes active when we feel left out. In evolutionary terms, this reaction was essential. To our ancestors, belonging to a group meant safety, food, and protection; isolation often meant death. Thus, the brain evolved to make social rejection genuinely painful, ensuring we stayed connected. In today’s digital world, this ancient alarm still sounds, even when the “exclusion” is nothing more than missing a post on Instagram.

This emotional discomfort is magnified by changes in the brain’s chemistry — particularly involving dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for feelings of pleasure and reward. Dopamine motivates us to seek out rewarding experiences, but when we witness others enjoying themselves without us, levels of this “pleasure chemical” dip. The result is a sense of emptiness or dissatisfaction that drives us to seek immediate relief — often by refreshing feeds, checking notifications, or scrolling endlessly. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle: the more we scroll, the more fleeting hits of dopamine we chase, and the more dependent we become on external validation.

Social media platforms exploit this vulnerability through variable reward systems — a psychological mechanism borrowed from the world of gambling. Much like a slot machine that pays out unpredictably, social media offers intermittent bursts of gratification: a like here, a comment there. Because the rewards are uncertain, our brains remain in a state of anticipation, compelled to keep checking in case the next notification delivers a rush of pleasure. What begins as harmless browsing subtly transforms into compulsive behaviour, as the mind’s reward circuitry is held hostage by the possibility of digital affirmation.

The discomfort of FOMO also activates deeper, older parts of our biological architecture. Human beings are profoundly social creatures, and our nervous systems are built to respond to inclusion and exclusion as matters of survival. When our brains perceive social disconnection, they release cortisol, the stress hormone that primes the body to act. In prehistoric times, such a surge might have spurred us to rejoin the group and regain safety. Now, it manifests as the uneasy restlessness that drives us to re-engage online. The body, in effect, cannot distinguish between being left behind on a hunt and being left out of a group photo.

Fortunately, neuroscience also offers hope for rewiring this response. Practices such as mindfulness have been shown to calm the brain’s overactive reward circuits, reducing the compulsive urge to check for updates. By focusing attention on the present moment, mindfulness restores balance to dopamine systems and lowers cortisol levels. Similarly, consciously altering how we interpret social information can soften the sting of perceived exclusion. Instead of viewing others’ joy as a reminder of our own absence, we can regard it as evidence of life’s richness, one that we too will partake in at another time.

In an age where connection is constant yet belonging feels fragile, understanding the neuroscience of FOMO allows us to approach our digital lives with greater awareness. The orchestra of the mind need not play out of tune each time we encounter exclusion. With a little practice, we can learn to quiet the discord, restoring harmony to a system that has simply been playing the same ancient song — the song of survival — in a modern key.

Illustration by Mia Fish