Master Thesis
Fear of Missing out on Facebook: The Connection between Social
Well-being and two types of Facebook activities
Ellie Petraki
Student number: 10488677
Graduate School of Communication
University of Amsterdam
1 Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Fear of Missing out and Facebook use and how the social well-being of emerging adults interferes in this relationship. This survey-study targeted an international sample of 318 Facebook users; two types of Facebook activities were examined: lurking and interaction on Facebook. The relationship between Fear of Missing out and the two Facebook activities was investigated. Also several pre-existing psychosocial characteristics of emerging adults were included in the survey that could make them more prone to experience Fear of Missing out. Results indicate that Fear of Missing out is related to Facebook use and especially to lurking on Facebook. Concerning emerging adults’ social well-being, those who experience more boredom and loneliness in their everyday life are more prone to experiencing Fear of Missing out.
2 Introduction
The popularity of social network sites has been increasing rapidly in the last seven years. In December 2006 Facebook reported having 12 million active users (Facebook, 2006) and as of March 2013 more than one billion Facebook users were reported (Ranie et al 2013). Facebook is a web-based platform that allows users to share profile information, pictures, music and several other interests of the member. It also allows users to connect with new people, strengthen old relationships and keep in touch with their existing contacts. A big part of Facebook users log in to their accounts every day so it is easy to conclude that Facebook has been integrated in the daily routine of a lot of people. According to Mazur & Richards, (2009) social networking is one of the most popular online activities among 18 to 24 year-olds.
Heavy use of Facebook may benefit people’s lives by increasing their self-esteem (Steinfield et al, 2008) and increase their life satisfaction (Valkenburg et al, 2006). Social connectedness on Facebook is also related to positive psychological effects such as lower depression, lower anxiety and enhanced social well-being (Grieve et al, 2013). However, heavy Facebook use can have negative effects in peoples’ lives, such as lowering users’ self-esteem and increasing their feelings of loneliness and depression (Kraut et al, 1998). A new negative outcome of Facebook use is Fear of Missing out or FoMo. FoMo is defined as ''a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent'' (Przybylski et al, 2013, p.1841). ). Facebook users see what their online friends are doing through repeated updates and the fact that they are not included, could lead to feelings of anxiety, loneliness and depression (JWT, 2012). According to Przybylski et al (2013) FoMo is closely connected to an individual’s psychosocial characteristics, which may mean that depending on an individual’s social well-being, the probabilities of experiencing FoMo
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may differ. Pre-existing feelings of loneliness and anxiety could be enhanced and sometimes people are not even aware that these feelings are caused by FoMo (JWT, 2012). Therefore the aim of this study is to investigate how FoMo is connected with Facebook use and how an individual’s existing social skills interfere in this relationship.
This study will investigate how FoMo is connected with Facebook use and how an individual’s existing social skills interfere in this relationship. Based on previous studies on the relationship between Facebook use and social well-being; it is unclear whether Facebook can have both positive and negative effects on an individuals' self-esteem and social well-being (Valkenburg et al, 2006, Kraut et. al. 1998).
On the subject of FoMo there is a big research gap. Although FoMo has been mentioned in the news several times there has been only one study that researched and bridged the relationship between FoMo and an individual's psychosocial characteristics (Przybylski et al, 2013). For this reason, in this study, the relationship between interaction and lurking on Facebook with FoMo will be explored. Furthermore, how an individual's social well-being mediates this relationship will also be investigated. However, how these are related is not yet clear. According to Przybylski et al (2013) there is a strong connection between Fomo and an individual’s psychosocial characteristics; what is not clear yet is whether pre-existing psychosocial characteristics affect the level of Fomo an individual experiences. This is because the relationship between Facebook use and Fomo has not been substantially researched. Moreover, emerging adults may use Facebook in different ways, interactively or lurking. In this research these two types of Facebook use will be used to investigate how they affect the levels of Fomo that emerging adults experience. Based on these assumptions the following research question was formulated:
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Facebook use and Social well-being
Facebook is one, if not the biggest and most popular social network site. With more than one billion active users (Ranie et al, 2013) it has become the biggest template for people worldwide to share several pieces of personal content including more than 250 million picture uploads (Facebook, 2012). Emerging adults post great amounts of content on their Facebook page daily. They post pictures of their experiences, events they attend; a lot of users update their status according to their psychological state and also to inform their online friends about important changes in their lives. Of course it has to be taken into consideration that not all users are honest about what they post. Many users only post updates about the most rewarding and fun experiences of their lives, leaving out simple everyday facts or facts of their lives that might be considered as not popular enough for their online friends. An individual’s personal Facebook page could be used as template to gather information about a person’s life, psychological state and even media and merchandise preferences.
An individual’s psychosocial health is as important as physical health. Peoples’ social skills and self-esteem could play a big role in everyday life since they define the way people interact with each other and feel connected to society (Keyes, 1998). Feeling connected to a community, accepting good and bad aspects of one’s personality, being a vital member of society and being aware of one’s larger community, according to Keyes (1998), leads to a socially healthy person. According to belongingness theory, people feel the need to develop
Interaction
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and strengthen positive social relationships and by that they experience feelings of belongingness; thereby, increasing their social-well-being (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In a study by Grieve et al (2013) based on the theory of belongingness, the results showed that social connectedness can be derived from Facebook and also connections that were made through Facebook can lead to face to face interactions.
Emerging adults have several reasons for using social media. According to the uses and gratifications theory, people actively seek out media to cover several social and communication needs (Katz et al, 1973). In line with this theory, it can be assumed that people use Facebook to seek out entertainment and connect with other people. Emerging adults choose to use Facebook on a regular basis with the expectation that by being part of this global social network, they will be able to connect with other people and feel like they are part of the online community (Raacke et al, 2008).
According to Valkenburg et al (2006) heavy use of Facebook that includes interaction and positive feedback from online contacts can benefit an individual’s self-esteem. In the domain of Facebook activities, previous research investigated what kind of activities can be considered as interaction; among them was joining groups or adding various posts. In this research, it was indicated that the most common interaction on Facebook was posting on someone’s personal page for birthday wishes (Viswanath et al., 2009). Furthermore, Facebook use can also be related to feelings of loneliness (Jin, 2013). Individuals with lower self-esteem feel more connected to the Facebook community (Tazghini & Siedleki, 2013). Another aspect of Facebook use related to social well-being is boredom.
Boredom can influence several aspects of an emerging adult’s life. Education and social life are two examples. A lot of students experience low motivation levels for academic work due to boredom (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986). In a study on the academic performance of
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college students, the authors showed that the more students use Facebook the lower their academic performance (Paul et al, 2012). Due to boredom and low motivation, a lot of students procrastinate instead of being focused in their work and Facebook has given them a place that they can spend hours talking to friends, browse through pictures and events and also play different kind of games.
Emerging adults have entered a stage in their lives where they experience a new kind of freedom and independence but are still exploring their identity at the same time (Pempek et al, 2009). The connections and relationships they have with their peers are very important to their social well-being and the way their social skills are extended. Facebook has provided a new way of strengthening those relationships and creating new ones. However, at the same time it can have negative effects on emerging adults. It has been reported that negative feedback posted on one's Facebook profile can lead to lower self-esteem (Pempek et al, 2009). With the mobility that smartphones now provide and easy Internet access, this continuous connection online may enhance these negative effects. The use of a smartphone has increased the habit to continuously check for updates or renew the news feed page (Oulasvirta et al, 2012). It is clear from the studies mentioned above that Facebook use is closely related to social well-being. How emerging adults use Facebook could be effected by their psychosocial characteristics or Facebook could be the reason for changes in their social well-being status. To investigate these relationships the following research question was formulated:
RQ2: What is the relationship between Social well-being, and Facebook use?
Fear of Missing out
FoMo is a phenomenon that is closely connected to an individual’s psychosocial characteristics because it could enhance already existing emotions (Przbylski et al, 2103).
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FoMo is defined as ''a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent'' (Przybylski et al, 2013, p.1841). FoMo is an existing phenomenon but the appearance of social media provides a new and wider platform where people have increased opportunity of experiencing FoMo. The real-time feed of other people’s activities has increased the awareness of what other people are doing. Thus, the mobility that smartphones have to offer may be another reason why people experience FoMo more often. Continuous updates of other people’s activities in which the individual is not included predisposes that individual to FoMo (JWT, 2012). FoMo could be described as a social angst that causes the feeling that an important event is being missed, which can lead to anxiety. It has also been reported that in some cases physical effects such as sweating, pacing and a compulsive need to refresh the news feed on a website have been experienced (JWT,2012).
These characteristics of FoMo can affect the social well-being of an individual. Feeling left out from a group of friends by not being part of their activities may lead to feelings of loneliness and depression. Furthermore, according to Keyes (1998), a vital part of an individual’s social well-being is social integration. Social integration is when an individual feels part of a society and feels that they have common interests with others (Keyes, 1998). Based on this theory, an individual’s feeling of exclusion from part of a group because he/she is missing out on some activities leads to lower levels of social well-being.
There has been little research on FoMo, but a recent study by Przybylski et al (2013) showed that FoMo is connected with the psychosocial well-being of emerging adults. They based their research on Self-determination theory, which measures self-regulation and psychosocial health based on competence, autonomy and closeness or connectedness. Their study showed that individuals with low levels of satisfaction of the three basic psychosocial
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needs appeared to experience higher levels of Fear of Missing out. Based on this research the following hypothesis was formulated:
H1: FoMo is negatively related to social well-being
Bargh & McKenna (2004) mention that social media use can have positive effects on psychosocial well-being when there is interaction with other people online. These results are supported by Valkenburg et al (2006) where their study showed that using Social Network Sites, where the user interacts with online friends, can be beneficial for the user's self-esteem and life satisfaction. Based on the assumption that social well-being is negatively related to FoMo, interactive use of Facebook is also negatively related to FoMo. With consideration of these relationships, the following hypothesis was formulated:
H2: Users who interact on Facebook will experience less FoMo compared with users who lurk on Facebook.
Previous research has shown that interactive activities on Facebook can be beneficial to an individual's self-esteem (Valkenburg et al, 2006). Another activity that has been documented on Facebook is lurking (Subrahmanyam et al, 2012). Lurking is when a user spends a lot of time tracking other peoples’ profiles (Subrahmayam et al, 2012). Lurking activity could also be connected with feelings of loneliness and lower social well-being (Subrahmayam et al, 2012). When it comes to lurking activity on Facebook, there has been very little research so in this study it will be investigated whether or not people with lower levels of social well-being are more prone to lurking activities on Facebook. Furthermore, if lurking is negatively connected with social well-being, then lurking could be related to FoMo. To investigate these relationships, the following research question was created:
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Method Sample and Procedure
This study was conducted using an online survey. In November 2013 the online survey was distributed through Facebook. The survey was targeted on emerging adults between the ages of 18 and 30 years old. From the 365 respondents who started the survey, 318 completed the online survey, and only their responses were used for the study. The survey was targeted on multiple nationalities. From these 318 respondents, 74.1 percent (n=238) was Greek, 5.3 percent French (n=17), 4.0 percent Dutch (n=13) and the rest 16.5 percent were other various nationalities. From the complete sample that was used (N=318) 26% were male (N=84) and 74% were female (N=234). Most respondents completed the survey within ten minutes.
Measures
Fear of Missing out. This concept was measured by a 10-item Fear of Missing out Scale
(FoMos) that was developed in the study by Przybylski et al (2013). Since this is the only reliable scale to measure Fear of Missing out, there was no selection from the items that were used and the order of the items was identical to the original scale. Response categories ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Sample items are: “I fear others have more rewarding experiences than me” and “I get anxious when I don’t know what my friends are up to”. The 10-item Fomo scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .78 (M=2.84; SD=0.61).
Facebook use. Three types of Facebook use were measured in this study, General
Facebook use, Interactive Facebook use and Lurking activities on Facebook. For measuring general Facebook use a 3-item scale was created by selecting items from the Facebook use scale created by Susanne Baumgartner (not published). The respondents were asked to
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indicated how often they engaged in Facebook activities rating from 1 (Never) to 5 (very
often). A sample of the questions is “How often do you use Facebook”. The 3-item General
Facebook use scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .62 (M=3.93; SD=0.69).
Interactive Facebook use. To measure interactive Facebook use, a 13-item scale
created by Baumgartner (not published) was used. The respondents were asked to indicate how often they engaged in several activities on Facebook and the response categories ranged from 1 (Never) to 5 (Very often). Examples of the items are “How often do you update you status” and “How often do you chat with someone on Facebook”. The 13-item scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .808 (M=3.19; SD=0.57).
Facebook lurking. To measure lurking activities on Facebook, a 3-item scale was
created. Two of the items were selected by the scale created by Pempek et al (2009) and the third item was selected by the Interactive Facebook use scale mentioned above. The questions asked to indicate how often they engaged in lurking behavior on acebook and the response categories ranged from 1 (Never) to 5 (Very often). An examples of the items are “How often do you check profiles of others?”. The 3-item scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .86 (M=3.43;
SD=0.9).
Self-esteem. Self-esteem was measured by a 5-item scale that was created by a
selection of items from the Rosenberg et al (1989) self-esteem scale. Two items in this scale were reverse coded because the items were measuring negative feelings and the other items positive feelings of self-esteem. Examples of the items are “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself” and “ At times I think I am no good at all” (reversed coded). Response categories ranged from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). The 5-item scale had a Cronbach’s alpha of .75 (M=3.80; SD=0 .63).
Social Competence. To measure Social Competence an item selection was made
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is divided into four dimensions measuring social competence; Initiation, Supportiveness, Self-disclosure and Assertiveness. From each section 3 items were selected, creating a 12-item scale. All questions would ask the participant to indicate how easy or difficult each of the situations following has been for them in the past 6 months and then continues with the individual items. Some examples are: “Introduce yourself for the first time to someone?” and “Stand up for your rights when someone wronged you?”. The response categories for the items ranged from 1 (very difficult) to 5 (very easy). The Cronbach’s alpha for the 12-item scale was .79 (M=3.48; SD=0.54)
Loneliness. For measuring Loneliness a selection from the 20-item UCLA loneliness
scale (Russel, 1996) was made, creating a 7-item scale. Sample items are: “I lack companionship” and “I am unhappy being so withdrawn”. Response categories ranged from 1
(totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). For the 7-item scale Cronbach’s alpha was .89
(M=2.27; SD=0, 82).
Life Satisfaction. Respondents’ degree of life satisfaction was measured using the
five-item Satisfaction with Life scale developed by Diener et al. (1985). Examples of items are “I am satisfied with my life” and “The conditions of my life are excellent”. Response categories for the items ranged from 1 (totally disagree) to 5 (totally agree). The 5-item scale had Cronbach’s alpha of .80 (M=3.07; SD=0.73).
Boredom. To measure the respondents’ degree of boredom a selection was made
from the 26-item Multidimensional State Boredom scale (Fahlman et al, 2013) which created a 7-item scale. Examples of items are “I am wasting time that would be better spent on something else” and “Everything seems repetitive and routine to me”. The response categories ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The 7-item scale had Cronbach’s alpha of .85 (M=3.02; SD=0.81).
12 Results
The aim of this study was to investigate how social well-being of emerging adults can interfere with their Facebook use and activities and thus cause them to experience higher or lower levels of Fear of Missing out. First it had to be established for the sample, if there is a relationship between an individuals’ social well-being and Facebook use, (interactive and lurking). Also, if each of the social well-being measurements; boredom, loneliness, life satisfaction, social competence and self-esteem have a relationship with Fear of Missing out. To test these relationships for each element of social well-being, correlational analyses were performed between each element and Fomo, interactive Facebook use, lurking activity on Facebook and general Facebook use. These correlations are shown in Table 1.
Table 1
Correlations with Fomo, Social well-being and Facebook use.
Fomo Interaction Lurking General Facebook use Fomo 1 ,264** ,266** ,238** Interaction ,264** 1 ,316 ,423 General Facebook use ,238** ,423 ,683** 1 Loneliness ,239** -,093 -,050 -,110 Boredom ,296** ,038 ,120 ,112 Social Competence -,259** ,102 -,049 ,095 Life Satisfaction -,123* ,073 ,018 ,047 **p<.001 *p<.05
The results in Table 1 indicated that Fomo was significantly correlated with a number of variables measuring social well-being and Facebook use. For example self-esteem was negatively correlated with Fear of Missing out (r=-26, p<.001) which indicated that lower levels of self-esteem are related to experiencing more fear of missing out. In a similar way
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social competence was also negatively correlated with Fomo (r=-26, p<.001); this means that emerging adults with high levels of social competence experience less Fomo. Life satisfaction showed a trend of being negatively correlated with Fomo (r=-12; p<.05) indicating that emerging adults that are generally satisfied with their life do not experience high levels of Fomo. Lurking activity on Facebook the results showed a significant positive correlation with Fomo (r=.27, p<.001) and so did the results for boredom (r=.29, p<.001) and loneliness (r=.24, p<.001) showing a positive correlation with Fomo. The correlation between Fomo and interactive Facebook use was significant (r= .26,p<.001) which was an unexpected result and thus proving that H2: : Users who interact on Facebook will experience less Fear
of Missing out is not supported. . From these results, it can be understood that emerging
adults who experience more Fear of Missing out also experience lower levels of self-esteem and social competence and higher levels of boredom and loneliness. Furthermore, emerging adults who tend to engage more in lurking activities on Facebook also have high levels of Fomo.
Interacting on Facebook the results indicated that it is not significantly related to any of the variables used to measure social well- being. But it is significantly correlated to Fomo (r = .26, p <.001). This indicates that emerging adults that engage in interaction of Facebook will experience Fomo but it is also indicated that their preexisting social well-being status is not related to their Facebook use. For the relationship between lurking activities on Facebook some variables that were used to measure social well-being did not correlate significantly. The only variable that showed a trend of correlating with lurking activities was boredom (r=.12, p<0.5); this indicates that emerging adults that experience high levels of boredom also engage in lurking activities on Facebook. In the case of the relationship between lurking activities on Facebook and Fomo the results showed a significant positive correlation (r=.26,
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Fomo. Furthermore, a strong relationship between general Facebook use and lurking has also been shown with the correlation being positively significant (r=.68, p<.001).
After establishing that there are significant relationships between Fomo and some of the social well-being variables, lurking activity on Facebook and general Facebook use, a regression analysis was performed to investigate if there is a strong relationship between social well-being Facebook and Fomo and if the relationship between social well-being and Fomo is mediated by the two types of Facebook use, lurking and interaction. First of all, it will be investigated how strong the relationship is between the social well-being measures that showed significant correlations (Boredom) with Facebook use (FB_Lurk) (FB_General). Furthermore the relationship between Facebook use and Fomo will be investigated to explore how strong are these variables related and if Fomo is a significant outcome of Facebook use. Finally it will be investigate if the two types of Facebook use (FB_Lurk, FB_General) mediate the relationship between Boredom and Fomo. In the mediation analysis Fomo will be the dependent variable and Boredom and FB_Lurk and FB_General will be the indicators.
In the first mediation analysis Fomo (M=2.8; SD=.61) was the dependent variable and Boredom (M=3.02; SD=.81) and FB_lurk (M=3.4; SD=.95) the predictors. F value indicated that the one model used was significant (F=23.07, p<.001). Moreover, 14% of the variance in Fomo can be predicted from the variables (R2=.142). The results showed that the effect of Boredom is significant (b=.201, p<.000) and its coefficient is positive indicating that higher levels of boredom can cause more lurking activity on Facebook which leads to higher levels of Fomo. Finally, FB_lurk has shown to be a smaller but still significant indicator for Fomo (b=.153, p=<.000). Since both of the variables showed a significant relationship with Fomo we can conclude that Boredom and Fb_lurk can be used to reliably predict Fomo. These results indicate that emerging adults who experience higher levels of boredom tend to
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experience more Fear of Missing out. Also that lurking activities on Facebook can cause emerging adults to experience more Fear of Missing out.
In the second mediation analysis Fomo was again the dependent variable only this time boredom (Boredom) and general Facebook use (FB_General) (M=3.9,SD=.67) were used as the predictors. The F value showed that the model was significant (F=19.9, p<001). 12% of the variance in Fomo can be predicted from Boredom and FB_General. The results indicated that the effect of Boredom was significant (b=.209, p<.000) and the coefficient was positive indicating that the higher levels of boredom the higher levels of Fomo an emerging adult will experience. Furthermore, the results for FB_General showed a strong and significant relationship, indicating that the more emerging adults use Facebook they will experience more Fomo (b=1.79, p<001). These results indicate that emerging adults that use Facebook, without any specification whether their activities are lurking or interacting, they are driven by boredom to spend more time on the social network. The more time they spent using Facebook the higher the levels of Fomo they experience.
The results of the mediation analyses can answer the two research questions of the study and support the first hypothesis. Providing an answer to what is the relationship between social well-being and Fear of Missing out the results indicate that Fear of Missing out is related to social well-being but had a strong relationship only with boredom. Emerging adults will experience Fear of Missing out due to feelings of boredom. High levels of boredom indicate low levels of social well-being; so the fact that boredom is strongly related to Fomo supports the hypothesis that Fomo is negatively related to social well-being. Regarding the relationship between lurking activity and Fear of Missing out, the results indicate a strong relationship between the two variables; in addition, the more emerging adults lurk on Faebook, the more likely they will experience Fear of Missing out. Finally supporting the hypothesis that Facebook users with lower levels of social well-being will
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experience more Fear of Missing out, the results showed that there is a significant relationship with social well-being and Fear of Missing out but only Boredom can be used as an indicator in this relationship.
Discussion
The aim of this study was to investigate how the social well-being of emerging adults can interfere with their Facebook use and if it can lead to higher levels of Fear of Missing out. Fear of Missing out can be experienced not only through media but everyday life situations (Przybylski et al, 2013). In any kind of social situation, an individual can experience Fear of Missing out by witnessing peers having rewarding experiences that he/she does not take part in. This is the reason why in this study the relationship between Fear of missing out and social well-being was investigated. The basic assumption was that emerging adults who are sociable and have high self-esteem, are more socially competent, satisfied with their life and experience less loneliness and boredom in their lives, will portray more interactive Facebook use and will experience less Fear of Missing out; also if their social well-being levels are low they will engage in lurking activities of Facebook and they will experience more Fear of Missing out in their lives.
After reviewing literature related to Facebook use (Pempek et al, 2009, Valkenburg et al, 2006) it was decided that Facebook use should be divided into two categories, interactive Facebook use and lurking activity on Facebook. Based on the literature (Valkenburg et al, 2006, Keyes,1998), it was hypothesized that social well-being would be strongly connected to Facebook use, interacting and lurking activities. The assumption was that emerging adults with higher levels of social well-being will interact more on Facebook and that will lead to lower levels of Fear of Missing out.
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According to the results, emerging adults who interact on Facebook experience some level of Fear of Missing out but this relationship is not related to their social well-being. These results do not align with previous research that showed that interaction on Facebook is related with higher levels of social well-being (Valkenburg et al, 2006). This contradiction difference can be explained by the fact that in this research social well-being was measured with several factors, social competence, self-esteem, loneliness, boredom and life satisfaction; the study that this assumption was based on was measuring the relationship with social media use and self-esteem.
The results indicate that emerging adults that take part in lurking activities on Facebook are more likely to experience Fear of Missing out. Lurking activity on Facebook can be defined by users who spent more time checking others peoples profiles and pictures, browse through the main page news feed but do not interact with other people on Facebook. Those kinds of users are more likely to scan through other people’s activities, posts and pictures without leaving any comment or have any kind of interaction. These actions are bound to lead to Fear of Missing out. When an individual spends a long time observing other people’s activities, eventually he/she will experience feelings of loneliness, depression and feeling of being left out of fun and rewarding activities that other people experience. That is the core of Fear of Missing out.
Although there were significant results in the relationship between Fear of Missing out and Facebook use, boredom was the one characteristic that showed a strong relationship with Fear of Missing out and Facebook use. Previous research can support the results that heavy Facebook use is closely related to boredom. According to the research by Lampe et al (2008) that was made with college students the majority of them stated that one of the major reasons they use Facebook in a daily bases is to relieve boredom and pass the time. Boredom is a significant element that interfered with the relationship between Fear of Missing out and
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lurking and also with the relationship of Fear of missing out and general Facebook use. Emerging adults that experience a lot of boredom in their everyday life and have a lack of motivation tend to spent more time on Facebook, either engaging in lurking activities or just using Facebook to either lurk or interact.
Similar to previous findings, this study showed that boredom is closely related to feelings of depression and overall emotional characteristics (Fahlman et al, 2011). Also emerging adults with low life satisfaction have feelings of boredom more often. These facts support the results for the strong, proportional relationship between Fear of Missing out and boredom since both elements have similar outcomes: depression and low satisfaction with life.
In this study a few points should be accounted for as limitations. First of all, the fact that men and women were not equally distributed should be considered a limitation. From the whole sample (N=318) only 26% were male (N=84) and 74% were female (N=234). The unevenness between genders made it difficult to check for differences between the two genders. Secondly, the fact that not enough research has been conducted on the phenomenon of Fear of Missing out made it difficult to find a strong theoretical background. The hypotheses and research questions regarding Fear of Missing out were only based on limited research.
Finally, a minor limitation should be considered; data could only be gathered from a small range of nationalities. This study initially targeted an international sample. After the distribution of the survey the majority of the respondents were Greek and a smaller part were Dutch and French. It should be taken into consideration that social well-being can be affected by the political and economic situation of each country. Differences between societies can play an important role when measuring behavioral and emotional characteristics.
19 Conclusion
This study aimed to investigate how Fear of Missing out can be affected by Facebook use and social well-being of emerging adults. This study was targeted on emerging adults that engage in Facebook use which was divided into two types of Facebook activities: lurking and interaction on Facebook. The relationship between Fear of Missing out and the two Facebook activities was investigated. Several pre-existing psychosocial characteristics of emerging adults were included in the study that could make them more prone to experience Fear of Missing out.
Overall, the study suggests that Fear of Missing out is related to social well-being and it can be affected by feelings of boredom and loneliness. Even though it was expected to see different outcomes for Fear of Missing out according to the type of Facebook use of emerging adults, it was concluded that only lurking activity can lead to excessive feelings of Fear of Missing out.
Emerging adults that are interactive on Facebook also experience some level of Fear of Missing out but their social well-being status is not diminished by this relationship. Although this research was based on theory there is ground for future research to explore the causes and effects of Fear of Missing out. In this day and age social media have taken over a large amount of emerging adult’s daily lives. Social network sites are now used for social, entertainment and professional purposes. It is a possibility that Facebook will not be as popular as it is now but other social networks will replace it. So Fear of Missing out will not stop affecting people’s lives and future research should explore what exactly is the cause for this phenomenon and how it is related to people’s pre-existing social well-being.
In conclusion exploring the relationship between social well-being, Facebook use and Fear of Missing out has shown how powerful social media have become. Understanding the
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reasons behind the negative feelings that are the outcome of Fomo should be more important than just exploring the phenomenon itself.
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