In the digital age, we rely on technology such as social media in trying to build interesting and varied lives. Social networking sites like Facebook are designed and promoted to make us believe enthusiastically that they are able to open up new experiences for us. There are constant notifications (通知) and updates, urging us to check-in to find out what is new.

But if we do not use the technology wisely, we can end up becoming overly attached and trapped in a cycle of social media FOMO, a sign of deeper unhappiness. FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a fear that exciting or interesting events are happening somewhere else and that we are not able to join.

People who experience high levels of FOMO have been found to be more likely to give in to urges to write and check text messages while driving, as well as to use Facebook more often directly after waking, while going to sleep and during meals.

When it comes to lasting happiness, it is best not to give in to FOMO, but rather to deal with the cycle of desires that fuel it. Hard as it is, we are better off working toward facing the fearful reality that we cannot experience everything we might like than to get caught in a cycle of checking behaviors that only cause anxiety.

If we have become used to using social media as part of our attempts at living interesting lives, we must admit that it is not easy to change our approach. But change is almost always worthwhile in the long run.

The fact that FOMO is so common in our digital age is a sign that there is something wrong with the way we are pursuing happiness and that we are not as happy as we might think we are. It should warn us that, in our eagerness to use digital technology to try to make ourselves happier, we may unintentionally (无意之中) be bringing on exactly the opposite result.

These days, we wonder a lot about why social networks go bad, full of terrible behavior. But it’s equally illuminating (有启发性的) to ask about the ones that work well. These communities share one characteristic: They’re small. Generally they have only a few hundred members, or maybe a couple thousand if they’re really popular.

And smallness makes all the difference. First, these groups have a sense of cohesion (凝聚性). The members have joined specifically to talk to people with whom they share an enthusiasm. That creates a type of social glue, a context and a mutual respect that can’t exist on a highly public site like Twitter, where anyone can crash any public conversation.

More important, small groups typically have people who work to keep interactions polite. Sometimes this will be the organizer or an active, long-term participant. They’ll greet newcomers to make them feel welcome, draw out quiet people and solve conflict when they see it emerge. But what’s crucial is that these key members model good behavior, illustrating by example the community’s best standards. The internet thinkers Heather Gold, Kevin Marks and Deb Schultz put a name to this: “tummeling,” after the Yiddish “tummeler,” who keeps a party going.

None of these positive elements can exist in a massive, public social network, where millions of people can get into each other’s spaces. That’s why perhaps the single biggest problem facing social media is that our mainstream networks are too interested in scale. But scale breaks social relations.

Is there any way to approach this problem? I’ve never heard of any simple solution. Strict antitrust laws for the big networks would be useful, to encourage competition among networks. But this likely wouldn’t fully solve the problem of scale, since many users fancy scale too. Longing for massive, global audiences, they will crowd into whichever site offers the hugest. Many of the well-known solutions to social media might help, but all ignore the biggest problem of all: Bigness itself.

If you want to get something done, you might want to put your mobile phone back in your pocket. Researchers have found that the mere presence of a phone is distracting (分心) — even if it is not your own. And the devices (设备) are likely to distract you, even if they are not ringing or “pinging” with text messages. People asked to carry out electronic tests of their attention spans were found to perform worse when a mobile phone was present than other people performing in the presence of a paper notepad.

Scientists from Hokkaido University in Japan said that their findings show that it is harder to concentrate when one of the electronic devices is present. The effect was most marked on people who are not regular users of phones. In tests on 40 undergraduates. Associate Professor Junichiro Kawahara and a colleague divided the subjects into two groups — one asked to carry out tests in the presence of an Apple iPhone next to a computer monitor, and the other in the presence of a notebook.

The test involved asking the participant to search for a particular character among a mess of other characters on the screen. Researchers measured the time it took to find the target. The results of the experiment found that those with the mobile phone took longer to find the character, indicating that participants were automatically distracted by the presence of the phone. The researchers suggest that people are drawn to the presence of a mobile phone, although there are individual differences in how one attempts to ignore it. In conclusion. Professor Kawahara said. “The mere presence of a mobile phone was a distraction among infrequent internet users.”

Another finding is that listening to one half of a mobile phone conversation also distracts people, and other studies have found that placing a mobile phone in view has a negative impact on the quality of face-to-face communications. Holding a mobile phone makes you less likely to get a fair hearing from others.