UNC student Bobby Mook has an acronym for an insecurity he sees in many students — FOMO, or the fear of missing out.
Mook said most Carolina students have felt insignificant, often late at night, thanks to Snapchat or Facebook.
He was one of seven students competing in the Laura Rozo Student Speaker Competition Thursday, the winner of which will be announced Jan. 20 and will speak at the TEDxUNC conference on Feb. 15.
TED — which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design — is a conference series that brings together experts in a single day to discuss a variety of topics. Each expert gives a lecture, which is posted on TED.com for free viewing.
The student speaker contest took place in the Great Hall of the Student Union and drew a crowd of hundreds.
The event was renamed this year in honor of last year’s TEDxUNC student speaker, Laura Rozo, who died from cancer last spring.
Madiha Bhatti kicked off the event, speaking on the negative effects Twitter and other social media networks have on our creative and academic abilities. Bhatti said our thoughts are being abbreviated; they are being consolidated into 140-word quips.
Bhatti was followed by Afika Nxumalo, who shared his ideas on fatherlessness and how this contributes to “all the world’s social problems.” Nxumalo finished his speech with a vocal and guitar performance, sharing his ideas in a musical fashion.
Safiyah Ismail discussed the difficulty of communicating with those different from ourselves and shared her story of experiencing a friendship through sign language.
