Culture

Nour Taha

The Relationship Between Lifestyle Idealization and Fear of Missing Out in Social Media Content

A close-up portrait of a young woman with long, dark brown hair parted down the middle, smiling gently at the camera. She has warm-toned skin with a dewy finish, dark brown eyes, subtle blush, and glossy pink lips. She wears a dark-colored top and a thin gold necklace with a small pendant. The background is a soft, blurred indoor setting.

Nour Taha is a Professional Communication student at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is passionate about digital media, storytelling, and social media content creation. Through her studies and internships in marketing and communications, she has developed skills in strategic messaging, collaboration, and creative problem-solving. Nour is particularly interested in how digital platforms shape audience engagement and looks forward to building a career in the media and communications industry.

Social media often presents highly curated and idealized versions of everyday life. This project examines how lifestyle content on platforms like TikTok may contribute to a false sense of reality and promote Fear of Missing Out (FOMO). Using a quantitative content analysis of 100 lifestyle videos, this study identifies indicators of lifestyle idealization and FOMO cues within social media content. The goal of the research is to better understand how social media posts may reinforce social comparison and contribute to feelings of missing out among viewers.

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