Trait Anxiety and Social Media Fatigue: Fear of Missing Out as a Mediator

Abstract

Background Interdisciplinary literature indicates different correlates of social media fatigue (hereinafter: SMF). Some studies show that high levels of anxiety may induce lowered Internet use and lead social media users to withdraw from Internet activities. Since the relationship between anxiety and social media use is complex, it is important to investigate mediating factors that may indirectly contribute to or exacerbate this association. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to verify whether fear of missing out (hereinafter: FoMO) is a potential factor accounting for why anxiety is associated with SMF. Participants, Methods and Data Collection The research was conducted on a group of 264 adolescents and adults (85% women). The mean age of the respondents was M = 23.76 with SD = 5.98 (range = 14–50 years). The data were collected via online social networking among college students, their family members and friends. The participants answered the Trait Anxiety Scale (TAS), Social Media Fatigue Scale (SMFS), Fear of Missing Out Scale (FoMO), and Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R). Results The outcomes showed that respondents with higher levels of trait anxiety report more intense cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and overall online fatigue. Concurrently, individuals who experience FoMO on the Internet declare being tired of social media use. Moreover, FoMO mediates the association between trait anxiety and all three dimensions of SMF, and its overall result. Conclusion The present research increases our understanding of the possible role of apprehension related to missing out on the anxiety and fatigue connected to engagement in social media. It is possible to assess that trait anxiety might induce higher SMF when individuals experience a general apprehension that others are doing or having things that they do not.

The Big Five Personality Traits and Positive Orientation in Polish Adults with Multiple Sclerosis: The Role of Meaning in Life

“…In order to detect multicollinearity, the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) and tolerance values were applied [114]. Following the general rule, it was assumed that the VIF values should not exceed 5.0 [115] and tolerance values should not be less than 0.1 [116]. The Mahalanobis distance with the criterion of p < 0.001 and Cook's distance with case values lower than 1 were implemented to verify the presence of outliers.…”

Measuring users’ psychological self-withdrawal on mobile social media: the development of a context dependent instrument

“…However, an analysis of the individual item factor loadings indicated that there was still an item (i.e., 10) with a factor loading below 0.6 on the single factor. This can also be theoretically justified in that the fear of missing out is considered a type of social anxiety (Li et al, 2022), and high levels of anxiety can lead social media users to withdraw from Internet activities (Swiatek et al, 2021). Therefore, this item is related to the antecedent of PSW and was removed from the item pool to improve the reliability of the measurement instrument, thus reducing the instrument to six items.…”

Moderating Effect of Negative Emotion Differentiation in Chronic Stress and Fatigue among Chinese Employees

“…Women with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) report greater fatigue than healthy women [24]. Individuals with higher trait anxiety have stronger social media fatigue (SMF) in terms of cognition, behavior, and emotion [25]. Chronic stress is related to anxiety and depression, and anxiety and depression can affect fatigue.…”