Deep Adhya, PhD

The ‘JOMO’ (the Joy Of Missing Out) movement has started. I have to admit I didn’t know much about the ‘FOMO’ (the Fear Of Missing Out) movement that it is trying to replace. FOMO has always been a thing among competitive people even before the internet. If you recall those pesky kids who used to eavesdrop on your private conversation then later gossip about it, or those who copied your homework just because you would do a better job (so why bother making an effort to do it themselves), that’s FOMO in action. Some sections of the human race have always been obsessed with the lives of others, not out of curiosity but out of a need to enrich their own lives. Now we have a name for it, thanks to the internet. When doing things became so easy that we could do all things we desired by just sitting on the bed in our undies, we thought, “Woah!” What were we missing out on all this time? So the race began. Everyone wanted to experience as many things as possible in their ‘short’ ...

‘Caveat emptor’ is a legal term which means, “… the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made.” In this information age where random words welded together into sentences are broadcast around the world more often than farts are broadcast through a room, the validity of the words need to be deeply scrutinized before believing. I have known this since the beginning of the internet, but before now never been able to put a name to it. I first heard this phrase on a news show where a woman TV journalist lashed at a woman victim of sexual abuse, who thought the TV journalist had a funny hairstyle. The said victim was accusing Aziz Ansari for acting weirdly and inappropriately on their first date. The incident brought about a lot of negative press for the accuser, and her credibility was being questioned, because said accuser was not doing justice to the #MeToo campaign by being mean to another woman and potential victim to ina...