Exploring the role of egocentrism and fear of missing out on online risk behaviours among adolescents in South Africa

Popovac, M and Hadlington, L ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9095-0517, 2019. Exploring the role of egocentrism and fear of missing out on online risk behaviours among adolescents in South Africa. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth. ISSN 0267-3843

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Abstract

The study explored the potential for developmental and social factors to predict adolescent online risk behaviour. Employing a sample of 1184 adolescents aged 12–18 in South Africa, the study examined gender, age, egocentrism (Personal Fable and Imaginary Audience) and Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) on online risk taking. Results showed that all variables were significant predictors of online risk behaviour. Higher Imaginary Audience, higher FoMO and older age emerged as strongest predictors, and males engaged in more online risks. FoMO also correlated significantly with egocentrism constructs. The findings indicate that egocentrism is a relevant developmental construct for understanding adolescent online risk taking along with social factors like FoMO, which can inform more targeted online safety efforts at particular developmental stages.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Journal of Adolescence and Youth
Creators:	Popovac, M. and Hadlington, L.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Date:	26 May 2019
ISSN:	0267-3843
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/02673843.2019.1617171 DOI
Rights:	© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Linda Sullivan
Date Added:	04 Sep 2019 08:36
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2019 08:36
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/37558

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