Background: Spending too much time on social media has become an epidemic in today’s digital era and has been linked to various negative consequences. On the other hand, FOMO is social media-related anxiety characterized by fear of missing out on exciting or interesting events, often driven by constant updates, notifications, and posts on social media, often linked to overuse. The research explores whether social media overuse and fear of missing out develop compulsive buying behavior or impulsive buying behavior.
Methods: Online survey data from 249 Indian young adults who actively use social media were collected using Social networking addiction scale, fear of missing out scale, compulsive buying scale, and impulsive buying scale. Mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentage were used as measures of descriptive statistics.
Result: Results from multiple regression analysis revealed that increased social media use of individuals fearing missing out predicted heightened impulsive buying tendencies and compulsive buying behavior. Additionally, mediation analysis suggests that impulsive buying behavior acts as a mediator, where excessive social media usage induces impulsive buying tendencies that can drive compulsive buying behavior to mitigate anxiety and avoid the fear of missing out.
Conclusion: This research can advance social change by guiding policy and instruction on digital media literacy, regulation on social media use, therapeutic interventions provided by educational institutions, and psychological services provided by other organizations, all of which can enhance young adults' mental health and well-being.
Keywords
Social-media overuse; Fear of missing out; Impulsive buying behavior; Compulsive buying behavior; Young Adults