Fear of Missing Out, Narcissism, Emotional Regulation, and Social Networking Addiction among Social Networking Users

The aim of the present research was to study fear of missing out (FOMO), narcissism, emotional regulation and social networking addiction among social networking sites (SNS) users which includes Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc. The sample (N=64) of SNS users was collected from Pune city through the purposive sampling technique. The sample used in this research ranged from 17 to 21 years (mean age=18.89 years). The tools used in this research were the Fear of Missing out Scale (FoMO) by Przybylski et al. (2013); the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-16) by Daniel Ames et al. (2006); Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) by Gross et al. (2003); and Social Networking Addiction Scale by Shahnawaz, Ganguly, and Zou. The findings showed that impulsivity was positively correlated with fear of missing out as a characteristic of social networking addiction (r= 0.314, p < 0.05). Also, impulsivity was positively correlated with narcissism (r=0.261, p < 0.05). Impulsivity and cognitive reappraisal were negatively correlated with each other (r= - 0.277, p < 0.05). Social networking addiction and fear of missing out were positively correlated with each other (r=0.254, p < 0.05). Also, social networking addiction and cognitive reappraisal negatively correlated with each other (r= -0.286, p < 0.05). Further, the regression analysis shows that fear of missing out predicts 9.8 % of impulsivity in social networking addiction (r square= 0.098). Fear of missing out and cognitive reappraisal together predicted 19 % of impulsivity in social networking addiction (r square= 0.190).