The relationship between social media use and fear of missing out: A meta-analysis

Social media use and fear of missing out are both common phenomena in our daily life. Numerous studies have discussed the relationship between these two variables, but the results were mixed. Theoretically, there are two main arguments about the relationship between social media use and fear of missing out. To be specific, the social cognitive theory of mass communication suggested that there was a significant positive correlation between the two variables, while the digital goldilocks hypothesis argued that there may be a U-shaped relationship instead of a significant linear correlation between the two. Empirically, the effect sizes of this relationship reported in the existing literature were far from consistent, with r values ranging from 0 to 0.75. Therefore, this meta-analysis was conducted to explore the strength and moderators of the relationship between social media use and fear of missing out. Through literature retrieval, 65 studies consisting of 70 independent effect sizes that met the inclusion criteria were selected. In addition, a random-effects model was selected to conduct the meta-analysis in Comprehensive Meta-Analysis 3.3 software, aiming at testing our hypotheses. The heterogeneity test illustrated that there was significant heterogeneity among 70 independent effect sizes, indicating that the random-effects model was appropriate for subsequent meta-analyses. Based on the funnel plot and Egger's test of regression to the intercept, no significant publication bias was found in the included studies. The main effect analysis indicated a significant positive correlation between social media use and fear of missing out (r = 0.38). The moderation analyses revealed that the relationship between social media use and fear of missing out was moderated by the indicator of social media use, as well as the type of social media. Specifically, compared with the frequency, the time as well as the intensity of social media use, social media use addiction had the strongest correlation with fear of missing out; compared with Snapchat and Facebook, Instagram had the strongest correlation with fear of missing out. Other moderators such as gender, age, measurement tools of fear of missing out as well as individualism index did not moderate the relation between these two constructs. The results supported the media effect model, which suggested that social media use, especially social media use addiction may be an important risk factor for individuals' fear of missing out. Longitudinal studies are needed in the future to explore the dynamic relationship between social media use and fear of missing out.