Dispositional and online-specific Fear of Missing Out are associated with the development of IUD symptoms in different internet applications

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

An increasing number of people experience negative consequences from the excessive use of different Internet applications or sites (e.g., Instagram, League of Legends, YouTube). These consequences have been referred to as specific Internet Use Disorders (IUDs). The present study aims to examine the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) on rewarding experiences with respect to specific Internet activities. FoMO has been found to mediate the link between psychopathology and symptoms of Internet Communication Disorder (ICD). However, the role of FoMO in other IUDs is controversial.

METHODS

The current study (N = 7,990) consecutively screened in vocational schools) analyzed the associations between online-specific state-FoMO, general trait-FoMO, mental health, and IUD symptoms in a structural equation model. After testing the model for the entire sample of Internet users, it was analyzed separately for the two main user groups: Social Networking Site (SNS) users and gamers.

RESULTS

The proposed model explained 42.0% of the variance in IUD symptoms in the total sample, 46.8% for SNS users, and 32.8% for gamers. Results suggest that impaired mental health and high trait-FoMO predict IUD symptoms. For both SNS users and gamers, trait-FoMO mediated the link between low mental health and IUD, whereas state-FoMO mediated the link between trait-FoMO and IUD in both user groups.

DISCUSSION

Our results partly support the theoretical model of specific IUDs, highlighting trait-FoMO as a predisposing fear of disconnection related to general mental health. Online-specific FoMO appears to contribute to problematic Internet use mainly because of its link to the general fear of disconnection. Moreover, the described mechanism seems to be comparable for both females and males.

CONCLUSIONS

FoMO is a multidimensional construct underlying IUD symptoms related to the use of socially gratifying, but distinct Internet applications. FoMO and psychopathology should be targeted together in prevention and treatment plans of IUDs.

Does the Fear of Missing Out Moderate the Relationship Between Social Networking Use and Affect? A Daily Diary Study

Social networking site (SNS) use is common and speculation about the negative impact of SNS use on mental health and psychological well-being is a recurring theme in scientific debates. The evidence for this link, however, is inconclusive. The Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) may assist in understanding the mixed evidence, as individuals who experience FoMO are more driven to keep up with what is happening to avoid missing out. We used a 2-week daily diary study of 408 university students to measure the daily associations between SNS use and negative and positive affect and whether FoMO moderated these associations. Multi-level Bayesian regression analyses revealed that 1) greater SNS use was associated with reductions in successive positive affect, but not increases in negative affect and 2) FoMO moderated the influence of SNS use such that increases in successive negative affect occurred only in those individuals high in trait FoMO.

Fear of Missing Out Predicts Distraction by Social Reward Signals Displayed on a Smartphone in Difficult Driving Situations

Smartphones are particularly likely to elicit driver distraction with obvious negative repercussions on road safety. Recent selective attention models lead to expect that smartphones might be very effective in capturing attention due to their social reward history. Hence, individual differences in terms of Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) – i.e., of the apprehension of missing out on socially rewarding experiences – should play an important role in driver distraction. This factor has already been associated with self-reported estimations of greater attention paid to smartphones while driving, but the potential link between FoMO and smartphone-induced distraction has never been tested empirically. Therefore, we conducted a preliminary study to investigate whether FoMO would modulate attentional capture by reward distractors displayed on a smartphone. First, participants performed a classical visual search task in which neutral stimuli (colored circles) were associated with high or low social reward outcomes. Then, they had to detect a pedestrian or a roe deer in driving scenes with various levels of fog density. The social reward stimuli were displayed as distractors on the screen of a smartphone embedded in the pictures. The results showed a significant three-way interaction between FoMO, social reward distraction, and task difficulty. More precisely, under attention-demanding conditions (i.e., high-fog density), individual FoMO scores predicted attentional capture by social reward distractors, with longer reaction times (RTs) for high rather than low social reward distractors. These results highlight the importance to consider reward history and FoMO when investigating smartphone-based distraction. Limitations are discussed, notably regarding our sample characteristics (i.e., mainly young females) that might hamper the generalization of our findings to the overall population. Future research directions are provided.

Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and social media's impact on daily-life and productivity at work: Do WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat Use Disorders mediate that association?

Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) is the tendency to experience anxiety over missing out on rewarding experiences of others. It has been associated with daily-life disruptions, such as distractions during driving. FoMO has also consistently been a predictor of Internet, smartphone, and social networks use disorders. In the current work, we investigated the association between FoMO and social media use's impact on daily-life and productivity at work. In addition, we aimed to determine whether WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat Use Disorders mediate that relationship. The effective sample comprised 748 German-speaking study participants from the general population (age M = 38.63, SD = 12.10; 336 men, 412 women) who took part in an online survey study. Bivariate analyses showed that severity of all social networks use disorders were positively correlated with FoMO and social media's negative impact on daily-life and productivity at work. Furthermore, controlling for age and gender, mediation analyses showed that out of all platforms, only Snapchat Use Disorder did not mediate the association between FoMO and social media's negative impact on daily-life and productivity at work. These results provide further evidence about FoMO's central role in digital technology use-related disorders.

Examining bi-directionality between Fear of Missing Out and problematic smartphone use. A two-wave panel study among adolescents

BACKGROUND

In recent years, the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) construct has been the object of growing attention in digital technology research with previous studies finding support for the relationship between FoMO and problematic smartphone use (PSU) among adolescents and young adults. However, no previous studies clarified the causal link between FoMO and PSU using a longitudinal design.

METHODS

An auto-regressive, cross-lagged panel design was tested by using a longitudinal dataset with two waves of data collection (T0 and T1, one year apart). Participants included two hundred and forty-two adolescents (109 males and 133 females), with a mean age of 14.16 years, who filled out the Fear of Missing Out scale (FoMOs) and the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS). Moreover, participants filled out the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), at the first time-point of data collection.

RESULTS

The findings of the study show that FoMO (both FoMO-Fear and FoMO-Control subscales) and PSU are positively related at both time-points (i.e. at a cross-sectional level). However no cross-lagged associations between them were longitudinally supported. Females and older adolescents show higher FoMO-Fear at T1.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of the present study suggest caution when causal links between FoMO and PSU are inferred.

Fear of Missing Out Predicts Employee Information Security Awareness Above Personality Traits, Age, and Gender

The role of human factors in employee information security awareness (ISA) has garnered increased attention, with many researchers highlighting a potential link between problematic technology use and poorer online safety and security. This study aimed to present additional evidence for this by exploring the relationship between of Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and ISA in employees. A total of 718 participants completed an online questionnaire that included a measure of FoMO, ISA, as well as the Big Five personality inventory. Participants who reported higher levels of FoMO had lower overall ISA, as well as having poorer knowledge, a more negative attitude, and engaged in riskier behaviors in relation to ISA. FoMO was also demonstrated to be the largest single negative predictor for ISA, above that of age, gender, and the key personality traits tested. The potential reasons for the influence of FoMO over ISA are discussed, as well as the implications for organizational information security.

Links between Adolescents' Deep and Surface Learning Approaches, Problematic Internet Use, and Fear of Missing Out (FoMO)

This study was aimed at exploring links between adolescents' deep and surface approaches to learning, Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), and Problematic Internet Use (PIU) by using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The analysis corroborated the postulated positive links between surface learning, FoMO, and PIU. Moreover, the FoMO construct represented a complimentary mediation between the surface learning approach and PIU constructs. This study may lead to a plausible inference according to which both FoMO and surface learning share a common core characteristic of decreased levels of self-regulation that might lead to PIU. Having students acquire and practice skills of self-regulation might help them control their levels of FoMO, and consequently their PIU at schools or out-of-school learning environments.