The Causes and Effects of Fear of Missing Out on Social Media

Abstract

As the frequency of social media use increases, psychological problems such as social media misuse anxiety may arise. Perhaps many online users have experienced or are experiencing Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), so it is particularly important to explore the communication theories that underlie the operation of FoMO and its consequences from the users' perspective. After a general introduction to the origins of the term FoMO, Goffman's Theatre Theory, Self-Presentation Theory and Sociology's Social Comparison Theory are used to explain the reasons why mass social media users experience FoMO. Overall, this paper finds that social media users are interested in positive self-presentation on Internet platforms, people are always actively or passively exposed to massive amounts of information within limited energy and time, and Internet users are socially upgraded by the good life deliberately created by others in the social network, all of which may be facilitated to some extent by FoMO. At the same time, this paper also popularises the behaviour of social media fatigue caused by FoMO to show that FoMO is a staged process with antecedents and consequences.