If we put aside the bigger sources of fear in modern society for a moment and look at smaller though arguably more subtle sources. These smaller fears and anxieties are perhaps just as corrosive in terms of their impact upon our wellbeing (for example fear of exclusion, social embarrassment, not fitting in, looking stupid whilst exercising). The rise of social media has seen the creation of many accounts of ‘perfect’ people living seemingly ‘perfect’ lives. Although on the one hand instagram accounts can be inspiring and even instructive (great ideas can definitely be found on there) they can also leave many people feeling inadequate and missing out in their lives. Indeed there is the popular abbreviation FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) often used and hash tagged in messages.
According to Ahmad Hariri (psychology and neuroscience professor at Duke University) “Change has occurred so rapidly for our species that now we are equipped with brains that are super sensitive to threat but also super capable of planning, thinking, forecasting and looking ahead, we essentially drive ourselves nuts worrying about things because we have too much time and don’t have many real threats on our survival, so fear gets expressed in these really strange, maladaptive ways.” Furthermore, talent tv and reality tv shows provide us with a message ‘you are either a winner or a loser’, there doesn’t appear to be any in-between. Since modern society also loves to run people down (tabloid hack articles, social media trolls and bullying) it can be nasty place to find yourself if you are not well received.
Overloaded with all of this, It is no surprise that social anxieties are much more commonplace in todays society. Issues such as social anxiety, hypochondria, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, phobias are much more commonplace that at any point in history.