Sustainable Development Goals
Abstract/Objectives
In recent years, anxiety over the use of social media has brought attention to the fear of missing out (FOMO). Previous studies have shown that fear of missing out is associated with many negative physical, emotional, and life adjustment outcomes. However, few researchers have explored the relationship between fear of missing out and concepts related to schoolwork learning. On this basis, we explored the relationship and mechanism between fear of missing out and student engagement. We also aimed to explore whether the use of action control strategy moderates the negative relationship between fear of missing out and student engagement, and elucidate possible underlying processes.
Results/Contributions
The results showed that fear of missing out was negatively associated with student engagement, and the negative relationship was mediated by social media engagement. The higher the fear of missing out, the more students paid attention to how others around them are doing through social media engagement, which was negatively associated with student engagement. In addition, action control strategy moderated the relationship between fear of missing out and student engagement. For students using fewer action control strategies, the relationship between fear of missing out and student engagement was negative. However, for students using more action control strategies, fear of missing out was not associated with student engagement.
Keywords
fear of missing out student engagementsocial media engagementaction control strategy