Fear of Missing Out Scale, FoMOs

Test scores

As the pace of life online and offline become increasingly intertwined, people are advantaged by, and sometimes struggle with, increasingly rich opportunities for interaction and leisure. Fear of missing out provides a salient example of how this trend towards frictionless online sharing can foster ambivalence about social media.

Fear of missing out can be directly and accurately measured and does not arise in a vacuum. Our findings show those with low levels of satisfaction of the fundamental needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness tend towards higher levels of fear of missing out as do those with lower levels of general mood and overall life satisfaction. FoMO is associated with higher levels of behavioral engagement with social media, possibly to the detriment of learning outcomes and driver safety.