Fear of Missing Out

The development of social media addiction has become a phenomenon creating a potentialpublic health crisis. While research has found correlations between the development of socialmedia addiction and rising levels of fear of missing out, there is limited research surrounding theinfluence of smartphone ease of access. This study examined the moderating effects ofsmartphone ease of access to social media platforms and assessed appropriate treatmentinterventions. This study used an experimental within-subject design with 641 participants, ages19-32 years. Part I of this study measured the participants’ levels of smartphone addiction, fearof missing out, and social media addiction at the initiation of the study. In Part II, 189participants were asked to deactivate social media applications on their smartphones for twoweeks and limit desktop usage to two days per week, no more than one hour each day. Variableswere measured again at the conclusion of the two weeks. The results reflected that therelationship between fear of missing out and social media addiction was significantly moderatedby smartphone addiction and revealed a significant difference in the mean scores for bothinstruments measuring fear of missing out, FOMO, and social media addiction, BSMAS. Theresults revealed a slight increase in the mean scores for FOMO and BSMAS, which may indicatethe need for a longer period of abstinence for smartphone social media use to reduce the levels ofFOMO and BSMAS.