Fear of missing out and psychological well-being: Examining the dual pathways of problematic social media use and digital burnout

Tufan, C, Köksal, K, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524 and Terzioglu, ZA, 2025. Fear of missing out and psychological well-being: Examining the dual pathways of problematic social media use and digital burnout. Psychology, Health and Medicine. ISSN 1354-8506

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Abstract

The present study examined how fear of missing out (FoMO) relates to psychological well-being in a collectivist context through a sequential moderated mediation framework. Grounded in self-determination theory, the study assessed whether FoMO related to well-being indirectly via problematic social media use (PSMU) and digital burnout (emotional exhaustion), and whether free time management (FTM; goal-setting and evaluation) moderated these associations. Cross-sectional data were collected from 570 sports science undergraduates in Türkiye. Results indicated that (i) FoMO was positively associated with PSMU, (ii) PSMU was positively associated with digital burnout, and (iii) digital burnout was negatively associated with well-being. This resulted in a sequential indirect association from FoMO to well-being via PSMU and digital burnout. Results also indicated that FoMO was indirectly associated with lower psychological well-being via higher PSMU and digital burnout. However, when these indirect associations were accounted for, FoMO showed a small positive direct association with well-being, a suppressor-like pattern consistent with socially oriented motivation in collectivist settings. FTM moderated several paths, buffering some associations while strengthening others, indicating conditional indirect associations. These findings nuance deficit-only views of FoMO and its socially-oriented aspects within collectivist settings and suggest that integrating digital literacy with time-management training may further support student well-being.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Psychology, Health and Medicine
Creators:	Tufan, C., Köksal, K., Griffiths, M.D. and Terzioglu, Z.A.
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis
Date:	21 November 2025
ISSN:	1354-8506
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/13548506.2025.2587974 DOI 2536407 Other
Rights:	© 2025 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-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	26 Nov 2025 11:34
Last Modified:	26 Nov 2025 11:34
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54811

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