Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Oct 22;15(10):2319.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph15102319.

Fear of Missing Out as a Predictor of Problematic Social Media Use and Phubbing Behavior among Flemish Adolescents

Vittoria Franchina  1 , Mariek Vanden Abeele  2 , Antonius J van Rooij  3   4 , Gianluca Lo Coco  5 , Lieven De Marez  6
Affiliations

Fear of Missing Out as a Predictor of Problematic Social Media Use and Phubbing Behavior among Flemish Adolescents

Vittoria Franchina et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) refers to feelings of anxiety that arise from the realization that you may be missing out on rewarding experiences that others are having. FOMO can be identified as an intra-personal trait that drives people to stay up to date of what other people are doing, among others on social media platforms. Drawing from the findings of a large-scale survey study among 2663 Flemish teenagers, this study explores the relationships between FOMO, social media use, problematic social media use (PSMU) and phubbing behavior. In line with our expectations, FOMO was a positive predictor of both how frequently teenagers use several social media platforms and of how many platforms they actively use. FOMO was a stronger predictor of the use of social media platforms that are more private (e.g., Facebook, Snapchat) than platforms that are more public in nature (e.g., Twitter, Youtube). FOMO predicted phubbing behavior both directly and indirectly via its relationship with PSMU. These findings support extant research that points towards FOMO as a factor explaining teenagers' social media use.

Keywords: addiction; adolescents; fear of missing out (FOMO); phubbing; problematic social media use (PSMU); social media; teenagers.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mediation model of the relationship between FOMO, PSMU and phubbing behavior (*** p < 0.001). FOMO: Fear-of-missing-out; PSMU: problematic social media use.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Moreno M.A., Jelenchick L., Koff R., Eikoff J., Diermyer C., Christakis D.A. Internet use and multitasking among older adolescents: An experience sampling approach. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2012;28:1097–1102. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.01.016. - DOI
    1. Billieux J., Schimmenti A., Khazaal Y., Maurage P. Are we overpathologizing everyday life? A tenable blueprint for behavioral addiction research. J. Behav. Addict. 2015;4:119–123. doi: 10.1556/2006.4.2015.009. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bean A.M., Nielsen R.K., Van Rooij A.J., Ferguson C.J. Video game addiction: The push to pathologize video games. Prof. Psychol. Res. Pract. 2017;48:378–389. doi: 10.1037/pro0000150. - DOI
    1. Kardefelt-Winther D., Heeren A., Schimmenti A., Van Rooij A., Maurage P., Carras M., Edman J., Blaszczynski A., Khazaal Y., Billieux J. How can we conceptualize behavioral addiction without pathologizing common behaviours? Addiction. 2017;112:1709–1715. doi: 10.1111/add.13763. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Van Rooij A.J., Daneels R., Liu S., Anrijs S., Van Looy J. Children’s motives to start, continue, and stop playing video games: Confronting popular theories with real-world observations. Curr. Addict. Rep. 2017;4:323–332. doi: 10.1007/s40429-017-0163-x. - DOI