My name is Mike Morrow, and I am addicted to my phone and the Web. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. More specifically, I believe that my proclivities toward Internet distraction are the result of a different affliction: that of FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out.

Wikipedia defines FOMO as:

a form of social anxiety — a compulsive concern that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, profitable investment or other satisfying event. This is especially associated with modern technologies such as mobile phones and social networking services such as Facebook and LinkedIn, which provide constant opportunity for comparison of one’s status.

I first became aware of the phenomenon—and felt an uncomfortable twinge of recognition—a couple years ago, when I came across this NYT piece, “Feel Like a Wallflower? Maybe It’s Your Facebook Wall.” The term was added to the Oxford Dictionaries Online in 2013. As reported on HuffPo, University of Essex’s Dr. Andrew Przybylski has studied the phenomenon (full study here) and found:

“Social media engagement presents a high-efficiency, low-friction path for those who are oriented toward a continual connection with what is going on,” he writes. “There is good reason then to expect that those who are high in fear of missing out gravitate toward social media.” Sufferers of FOMO were more likely to check their phones as soon as they woke up in the morning, right before they went to bed and, disturbingly, while they were driving.

Kevin Holesh saw a similar pattern in his own life, and not only wrote about it on Medium, but wrote an app (Moment) that tracks daily iPhone use and provides alerts when you use the device for “too long.” There’s something delicious about the irony in that, wouldn’t you agree?

All of which is clearly different than the separate pathology (the narcissism?) that drives us to proclaim our every thought on every social network…or to start an email newsletter.

(Shhh. Don’t say it.)

Truth is, we are still early-days when it comes to understanding how all this technology at our fingertips is affecting our minds and our culture. Indeed, “computer metaphors are ‘invading’ our language.” And just this weekend came the disturbing news that Facebook has experimented with its users in a massive “psychology experiment.”

While I refuse to go the Jonathan Franzen route and blame the Internet for everything (my own experience provides ample room for optimism), I think we have to be careful what we wish for, and vigilant on the ways that our technologies affect what we perceive as “real life.”

PSA about backups:

Speaking of your digital life and how important it may or may not be, I must also confess to being one of those dreadful people who will talk at you incessantly about making sure your digital life is backed up. Twice. Ideally three times: one local, one offsite, one in the cloud (I use Backblaze). I’m a total prick about it. These days there are almost no excuses for you to not have a solid backup strategy, especially if you use a Mac.

My favorite disappointed nerd, good friend and Internet Pope TJ Luoma has written a fantastic resource for getting started with Mac backups over at TUAW. Read it, save it, live it.

One of my other favorite Web writers, Matt Gemmel, also just wrote up his thoughts on the subject.

Food:

The best thing I cooked last week was Ellie Krieger’s Corn and Quinoa Salad with Chicken Sausage. If you’re not familiar with Krieger—we first learned of her from her short-run Food Network show—I recommend you check out some of her recipes or cookbooks. Her food is consistently tasty and accessible. Along with Mark Bittman, she’s become a go-to recipe author when we don’t know what else to make.

Bittman himself had a great op-ed in the New York Times (“Rethinking the Word ‘Foodie’”). It touches some of my all-time favorite topics: food, language and semiotics, activism. I won’t spoil it by quoting too much—go read the full piece—but here’s the setup:

We can’t ask everyone who likes eating — which, given enough time and an adequate income, includes everyone I’ve ever met — to become a food activist. But to increase the consciousness levels of well-intentioned foodies, it might be useful to sketch out what “caring about good food” means, and to try to move “foodie” to a place where it refers to someone who gets beyond fun to pay attention to how food is produced and the impact it has.

The best thing I didn’t make, but believe me when I tell you I’ve been thinking about it a lot is this recipe for One Big Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Three other things to think about:

• These “offices for introverts” are pretty fantastic.
• Don’t expect those Amazon drone shipments to happen anytime soon.
• Assuming aliens don’t appear between writing this letter and pressing “send,” here’s as good a rundown as I’ve ever seen on the Fermi Paradox.

Have a great week, and enjoy the Fourth of July holiday here in the States!

Mike

Hi,

What a week! I’ve been so pleased (and, honestly, a little overwhelmed) by response to my first letter. Thank you. It’s all been so good, let’s keep the ball rolling and focus on good this week…

When you receive this I’ll be past day five of single parenting, while J helps with some family business down south. Doesn’t that sound like a very elegant euphemism of some kind? It’s not.

I’ve had the very good fortune of having tons of help with childcare from the force of nature some of you know as Auntie Kay (my mom). Her knees may not agree, but I like to think I’m doing her a favor—despite the clickbaity headline on this article at The Alzheimer’s Site, “new research reveals that women who take care of their grandchildren one day a week are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s.”

Most websites are using insidious lazy headlines to draw clicks. You won’t believe what happens next!

Jake Beckman is doing the Internet a very good service. His Twitter account (@SavedYouAClick) diffuses these stupid headlines with humor and accuracy. Best account I’ve followed on Twitter in months (except yours). He was interviewed at Vice. And if you’re not on Twitter you can see his work here.

Good work:

Some of the good in my week came from seeing the hard, consistent work of three very deserving colleagues be recognized and rewarded. You know who you are: congratulations again.

Good eats:

Another colleague returned from New York last week with raves about Lidia Bastianich’s Becco on 46th Street between 8th and 9th. Inspired by their visit and the as-yet unfulfilled promise of the three three thriving cherry tomato plants in my backyard, I made Lidia’s Pasta with Baked Cherry Tomatoes. It was summery and awesome.

Good works and good eats:

This great idea from from Federal Donuts in Philadelphia really captured my imagination. Their core business (fried chicken and donuts) produces nearly 1,000 pounds of high quality chicken bones and backs each week. So they’ve created a partnership with Philly’s Broad Street Ministry Hospitality Collaborative:

We want to turn our practically free chicken stock into tasty soups that you can buy. And we’ll donate 100% of the profit from every bowl to Broad Street’s Hospitality Collaborative.

They’re running a Kickstarter to fund the effort, and I highly recommend you join me in supporting the project.

Good thoughts:

Jonathan Carroll has written some of my favorite books—books that blow my socks off (humblebrag: he also once wrote me an unsolicited email about a project I started long ago and I treasure his encouragement like that of a family member).

He’s a wise writer. Earlier I came across a passage of his that’s a few years old, but speaks to me now in a timeless, urgent way.

“I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don’t feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid’s runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are— particularly when it’s difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it’s done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain (“I’m not a big one for paying compliments…”), but the irony is that almost every time you make them, you feel better about yourself. For a moment life suddenly feels lighter, a bit more Gene Kelly dancing in the rain.” — Jonathan Carroll

Pretty good. I hope your life feels lighter this week, be it from your own or others’ small gestures.

Oh! By the way: a friend dared me to let a typo slip in to this week’s letter, just to practice the art of excellence/progress over perfection. I won’t admit to including one purposefully, but let’s agree to chalk any typos (past, present, or future) up to that.

Talk to you soon.
Mike

I’ve wanted to do something like this for a long time, though I’m still working through exactly what to include here. And I’m (apparently) notorious for starting web writing projects. But like anything digital, I hope you’ll join me in considering this letter a work in progress, and I do appreciate your willingness to play along.

Case in point:

When I first hatched this plan, I thought I’d send new editions out every Friday. For uninteresting reasons, that’s going to change. Starting on June 23, Miscellaneum will be sent on Mondays.

Sweet dreams are made of this:

Surprisingly, I don’t believe that writing this first issue will be the strangest thing I’ll do this week. Today I pick up an apparatus for a home sleep study, heading down the road to Breathing-in-my-sleepville. My physician claims I have a “fleshy palate” that is likely causing my apnea.

Hold up. Did you stop to snicker or make a joke about my Fleshy Palate? I’ll wait.

Got it out of your palate-shaming system? Good.

Anyway, all I’ve been told is that my head will be measured and that I’ll wear some device while I sleep Friday night to monitor just how badly I sleep and how often I stop breathing. Then I’ll get another machine that will make my wife stop hating the “sounds” I make while I “sleep.”

Science!

Here’s what I’ve been feeding my brain this week.

Watching

Mostly sports this week, between the NBA and NHL Finals. BOR-ING.

As I mentioned Thursday evening, I’m really troubled by the idea that other (non-Chicagoans) might have felt about the Nineties Bulls the way I feel about the Twenty-teens Heat. Even if it’s true, I don’t want to know about it because the Heat drive me crazy. (Truthfully I’m just mad that OKC didn’t make it through.)

And don’t get me started about how much better it is to be watching playoffs on a nice big new TV.

Reading

I’ve been fighting my way through the last part of Christopher Priest’s otherwise entertaining The Adjacent this week. I can tell that Priest, ever the illusionist, is walking me through a deft trick, but I can’t quite follow his hands. I suppose that’s the point.

Started George Packer’s The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America too. I’ve been reading quite a bit more history lately (J tells me it’s part of the process of turning into a middle-class forty-year-old), and it’s particularly fascinating to examine more recent events with a more objective eye. Unsure just how objective Packer is, but the profiles he’s selected so far are thought-provoking.

Listening

I’m still giving a lot of attention to the newest St. Vincent album, which I missed when it first came out due to grief-haze.

And of course my man Bob Mould just released Beauty and Ruin, so I’ve been putting that through it’s paces. Of course, nobody warned me that it’s largely about Mould dealing with the death of his father so it feels a little close at times…but also cathartic in the way that much of Bob’s best work is. That’s right, I call him Bob. We’re close like that.

Enough affiliate links for one week. Have a great weekend!

Talk to you soon.
Mike