Weekend Trip FOMO

Last weekend I took a trip down to Clemson University in South Carolina to hang out with friends from high school and experience real college football for the first time. This was the first time in my four years at UVa that I ventured away from Grounds to visit another college. I was nervous. I'd heard about some fun parties that would be held that weekend and I was worried I would miss out on something amazing that all my friends would get to see. I had FOMO and, contrary to what some may believe, there was no cure. The cost of leaving grew higher with every invite I received, but it was too late for me to cancel my trip now. Accepting my fate, I started talking to friends about their plans for the weekend, expecting to hear about everything they were excited for at UVa. To my great joy the first friend told me that she was actually heading out of town this weekend and was sad because of all the exciting stuff she had heard about. Relief flooded over me, I told her that I was going to be gone too and her exact response was "Oh, awesome! At least I won't be the only one missing out."

My economic ears pricked up at this statement. We had each just lowered the cost to the other of leaving for the weekend by taking an action that had seemingly no impact on the other. I kept talking to people and found that many of my friends were leaving that weekend. Each revelation made me feel better and better about my decision just as my leaving made them feel better about theirs. Leaving for a weekend, it appeared, was a positive externality of consumption (consumption of travel probably) as the act of leaving for a weekend had a tangible benefit to people who played no role in that decision. This should mean that leaving for a weekend is underproduced relative to the allocatively efficient quantity. But, it's also true that for students who don't leave for the weekend their FOMO gets worse with every additional friend taking a trip, at least according to my roommates. This means that there is also a negative externality in consumption affecting their cost of staying put. As a result, it is impossible to say if weekend trips are overproduced or underproduced, but it's clear that FOMO is here to stay as it preserves a delicate equilibrium. As for my own FOMO, and yours, I have found a cure after all, I just need to convince all my friends to take trips with me so we can all enjoy the positive externalities.