Psychology 101: Fear of missing out: FOMO

With the increase in the use of social media, it is possible to talk about many daily changing behaviors and new concerns accompanying them. Fear of missing out, referred to as Fear of Missing Out or FoMO in the literature, is one of the first examples of this. FoMO (Przybylski et al., 2013), which is defined as the anxiety that one may miss while the people around him are engaged in fun activities together with the instantaneous information transfer from the social media, and therefore the need to constantly learn what others are doing, is the most common form of social media. It can be argued that it is one of the feelings. The 4 Most Important Artists of the Renaissance Period and their Most Known Paintings

The concept of FoMO has gained a prominent place in the literature with the research of Pryzbylski et al. (2013). In the study, the relationship of fear of missing out with many factors such as well-being, mood and behavioral factors was examined.

Motivational Factors and Self-Determination Theory

Przybylski et al. (2013), who wanted to examine the factors underlying social media presence and living FoMo, used the Self-Determination Theory developed by Deci and Ryan (1985). According to this theory, psychological need satisfaction in humans is achieved through 3 basic concepts: autonomy (autonomy), competence (competence) and relatedness. The researchers’ hypothesis is that the lack of any of these psychological needs will make people more prone to social media use with the motivation to strengthen their social relationships, while on the other hand, it can make them more vulnerable to negative feelings such as FoMO. The analyzes have indeed shown that participants with low levels of psychological need satisfaction and well-being experience high levels of FoMO. In addition, it has been observed that low psychological need satisfaction is an effective factor in increasing social media use. Considering all these, low psychological need satisfaction has been evaluated as a risk factor for experiencing FoMO.

Behavioral Reflections of FoMO

In the same study, when the social media use of the participants was examined, it was observed that the participants who experienced more FoMO tended to use social media more in many situations. It has even been revealed that these participants are more prone to situations such as checking social media during the lesson, responding to notifications and messages while driving. In addition, another study claimed that social media (Roberts & David, 2020) can indirectly increase social connections, thus indirectly having a positive effect on well-being.

While its negative effects are widely discussed in the literature, Alutaybi et al. (2020) developed a technique to reduce FoMO. According to this technique, it is aimed to reduce the feeling of FoMO with some methods such as self-talk and expectation management. As a result of the participants in the study trying these methods for 10 days, it was observed that the feeling of FoMO decreased and their awareness of coping with this feeling increased. One of the methods mentioned in the study is the self-talk method, in which the participants direct themselves when they feel the urge to control social media, in a way they learn to say no to themselves. According to this method, for example, the person who needs to respond to the message immediately says, “I don’t have to respond to this message immediately.” He tries to resist his impulse with such suggestions.

Another method mentioned in this study is expectation management. While sharing something on social media, it is possible to expect interactions such as automatically receiving likes and comments in return. In addition, the expectation of being mutually reachable, receiving and responding can be created in one-to-one messaging. While these may seem like naturally occurring expectations, they can create pressures that increase the fear of missing out. Therefore, according to this method, even small steps such as not expecting to receive interaction while posting or updating your status as “busy” when not available can reduce the urge to engage in social media constantly.

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