The Relationship between the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) and Social Media Use in Articulating Islamic Identity among Muslim Millennials

Abstract

Current technological developments have both positive and negative impacts. One of the negative impacts of excessive use of social media is that it can lead to addiction, cyberbullying, and fear of missing out (FoMO). It can even erode one's identity, as it is influenced by widely circulated videos on social media. The purpose of this research is to analyze the relationship between FoMO, problematic use of social media, and expressions of Islamic identity. The FoMO scale, social media disorder scale, and Instagram Islamic identity scale were used as measuring tools in this research. A quantitative approach was employed, using multiple analyses, which revealed that both FoMO and problematic use of social media contribute simultaneously to the expression of Islamic identity. The subjects of this research were 177 Indonesian millennial Muslims who actively participated in the Instagram migration movement. Problematic use of social media and expression of Islamic identity had an effective contribution of 40.6% (36.7% from social media use and 3.9% from FoMO). Additionally, we found that questionable social media use had a significant correlation with the articulation of Islamic identity, while FoMO itself had no correlation with it. These results can serve as a basis for future research on the expression of religious identity on social media and the development of interventions to address excessive social media use.