Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out

What This Research Found

FOMO reflects genuine psychological hunger. The study demonstrated that fear of missing out isn’t a character flaw or simple bad habit—it emerges from unmet psychological needs. People who report less satisfaction of their basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness also report higher FOMO. The fear is rational in a sense: it accurately reflects that something important is missing.

Three basic needs drive the dynamic. Self-determination theory identifies:

• Autonomy: Feeling that your choices are your own
• Competence: Feeling effective and capable
• Relatedness: Feeling connected to others who matter to you

When these needs go unmet, FOMO intensifies as the psyche seeks connection through whatever means available—including the pseudo-connection of social media.

FOMO produces compulsive behaviors. People high in FOMO check social media immediately upon waking and while driving—despite knowing these behaviors are problematic. They report ambivalent feelings: awareness that social media harms them combined with inability to stop. This pattern mirrors addiction precisely.

The measurement tool enables research. The Fear of Missing Out Scale developed in this study has become the standard instrument, enabling hundreds of subsequent studies to build on these findings with consistent measurement.

Why This Matters for Survivors

The compulsion isn’t weakness. If you’ve struggled to reduce social media use despite wanting to, understand that FOMO isn’t a failure of willpower. It’s a symptom of unmet needs—and those needs may relate to the attachment injuries that narcissistic abuse creates. Survivors often have heightened needs for validation and connection precisely because these were denied in abusive relationships.

Recognize the pattern. The ambivalent relationship with social media—knowing it’s harmful but feeling unable to stop—parallels the ambivalence survivors feel toward their abusers. Both involve intermittent reinforcement, unpredictable reward that drives compulsive checking, and promised connection that never quite satisfies.

Address the underlying hunger. The research implies that fighting FOMO through restriction alone will fail. The hunger will persist until addressed through genuine connection, meaningful activity, and authentic relationship. Recovery from narcissistic abuse often involves rebuilding exactly these capacities—and doing so may naturally reduce FOMO vulnerability.

Social media can impede recovery. Platforms that exploit FOMO can interfere with healing from narcissistic abuse by keeping you in a state of external orientation—focused on others’ validation rather than internal stability. The comparison dynamics that fuel both FOMO and narcissistic patterns operate continuously on social media.

Clinical Implications

Assess FOMO in technology discussions. When patients present with problematic social media use, assess the underlying psychological need satisfaction. FOMO-driven use indicates unmet needs for autonomy, competence, or relatedness that should be addressed therapeutically, not just managed behaviorally.

Distinguish use patterns. Social media use driven by genuine connection-seeking differs from use driven by anxiety about missing out. The former may be healthy; the latter indicates unmet needs requiring attention. Ask: “What happens if you don’t check?” Fear and anxiety suggest FOMO; mild interest suggests healthier engagement.

Address needs, not just behaviors. Behavioral interventions targeting screen time without addressing underlying needs are likely to fail or produce symptom substitution. Therapy should focus on building genuine sources of autonomy, competence, and relatedness so that social media becomes less necessary for psychological regulation.

Watch for FOMO in abuse survivors. Survivors of narcissistic abuse often have elevated FOMO because their fundamental needs for connection and validation were weaponized in the abusive relationship. Post-abuse, the hunger for connection persists while trust in relationships is damaged—making social media’s pseudo-connection particularly appealing and harmful.

Broader Implications

Platform Design

Social media platforms are explicitly designed to exploit FOMO: notifications create urgency, feeds show curated highlights, ephemeral content (stories) creates artificial scarcity. Understanding FOMO as exploitation of psychological vulnerability rather than user choice has implications for platform regulation and design standards.

Developmental Concerns

Adolescents have naturally high needs for peer connection and are still developing identity—making them particularly vulnerable to FOMO exploitation. The research supports age-appropriate regulations and education about social media’s psychological mechanisms, not just content concerns.

Cultural Narcissism

The book discusses how technology creates narcissistic adaptations in otherwise healthy individuals. FOMO is one mechanism: by keeping people in constant anxious comparison with curated presentations of others’ lives, platforms encourage external orientation and validation-seeking that mirror narcissistic patterns.

Intervention Design

Programs addressing problematic technology use should focus on need satisfaction rather than restriction alone. Building real-world relationships, meaningful activities, and genuine autonomy reduces FOMO vulnerability more effectively than willpower-based limitation.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Przybylski’s research appears in Chapter 13: The Great Accelerant to explain how technology exploits psychological vulnerability:

“Dr Andrew Przybylski and colleagues’ 2013 study delivered the first rigorous analysis of what they called ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO), defined as ‘a pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent.’ Przybylski’s research, grounded in self-determination theory, revealed something important: FOMO is not simply a personality trait or bad habit. It emerges from unmet psychological needs. Individuals who reported less satisfaction of their basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness also reported higher levels of FOMO. The fear is not irrational—it reflects genuine psychological hunger. Social media does not create this hunger, but it exploits it relentlessly, offering the appearance of relatedness while delivering only its simulation.”

The chapter also returns to this research when discussing interventions:

“Przybylski’s work on FOMO suggests that the fear of missing out correlates with unmet psychological needs—autonomy and relatedness—rather than being an inevitable response to technology. Addressing those underlying needs may reduce vulnerability to platform manipulation.”

Historical Context

This 2013 study appeared at a critical moment in the understanding of social media’s psychological effects. “FOMO” had become a popular term but lacked scientific definition. Przybylski’s contribution was threefold: grounding the concept in established psychological theory (self-determination theory), creating a reliable measurement instrument (the Fear of Missing Out Scale), and demonstrating the relationship between FOMO and unmet psychological needs.

By framing FOMO as need-driven rather than technology-caused, the research shifted discourse from “social media is bad” to a more nuanced understanding of how technology interacts with existing psychological vulnerabilities. This framework has proven more useful for intervention design than simple restriction approaches.

Further Reading

• Deci, E.L., & Ryan, R.M. (2000). The ‘what’ and ‘why’ of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior. Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), 227-268.
• Turkle, S. (2011). Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Basic Books.
• Twenge, J.M. (2017). iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy—and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books.
• Alter, A. (2017). Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Penguin Press.
• Przybylski, A.K., & Weinstein, N. (2017). A large-scale test of the Goldilocks hypothesis: Quantifying the relations between digital-screen use and the mental well-being of adolescents. Psychological Science, 28(2), 204-215.