Elsevier

Psychiatry Research

Volume 259, January 2018, Pages 514-519
Psychiatry Research

Facebook intrusion, fear of missing out, narcissism, and life satisfaction: A cross-sectional study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2017.11.012Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The relations between FoMO, narcissism, Facebook intrusion, and life satisfaction was showed.

  • The participants in the study were 360 Polish users of Facebook.

  • A high level of FoMO and high narcissism are predictors of Facebook intrusion.

  • A low level of FoMO and high narcissism influence satisfaction with life.

Abstract

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. The present paper examines the relations between fear of missing out, narcissism, Facebook intrusion, and life satisfaction. We hypothesized that the fear of missing out and narcissism would play a significant role in Facebook intrusion. The participants in the study were 360 Polish users of Facebook. We administered the Facebook Intrusion Scale, the Fear of Missing Out Scale, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale. The results showed that a high level of fear of missing out and high narcissism are predictors of Facebook intrusion, while a low level of fear of missing out and high narcissism are related to satisfaction with life. Our findings provide a more comprehensive picture of the predictors of Facebook intrusion and reveal interesting patterns.

Introduction

Social networking sites have imperceptibly become part of our social life. People want to keep their friends informed about the events in their life; they also want to be informed all the time about what their friends are doing. With the increasing the popularity of Facebook, problems involving its excessive use have emerged. In the literature, some findings have been presented that pertain to various determinants of Facebook intrusion: social (Błachnio et al., 2016c), psychological (Bergman et al., 2011; Błachnio et al., 2016), temporal (Przepiorka and Blachnio, 2016), and biological (Blachnio et al., 2015). Still, further studies are needed, explaining why people become addicted to social networking and what kind of people are the most susceptible to this addiction. The aim of the present exploratory study was to examine the influence of narcissism (Bushman and Baumeister, 1998), fear of missing out (Przybylski et al., 2013), life satisfaction (Diener et al., 1985), and age on Facebook intrusion (Elphinston and Noller, 2011). The variables and their relations to Facebook intrusion will be described in the respective subsections below.

Facebook is one of the most popular social networking sites. Its increasing popularity has caused the appearance of terms used in the literature to refer to Facebook dependency, such as “Facebook intrusion” (Elphinston and Noller, 2011) or “Facebook addiction” (Andreassen and Pallesen, 2014), which can be defined as excessive involvement in Facebook, disrupting day-to-day activities and interpersonal relationships (Elphinston and Noller, 2011). Some authors have mentioned three aspects of this phenomenon, namely: (1) withdrawal, (2) relapse and reinstatement, and (3) euphoria (Elphinston and Noller, 2011). Facebook intrusion covers excessive Facebook use as well as emotional attachment to it. People who are strongly involved in Facebook feel distressed when they cannot use it, and they have already unsuccessfully attempted to reduce Facebook use. They also feel a connection with other users of that site (Elphinston and Noller, 2011).

The fear of missing out (FoMO) is a concept comprising a desire to keep up with what other people are doing and a belief that other people experience more interesting events when one is absent (Przybylski et al., 2013). It can also be defined as a fundamental human motivation that consists in craving interpersonal attachments. Such attachments can be hindered by social exclusion, which is often linked with social pain (Lai et al., 2016). As found in a previous study, men have a higher tendency to feel a fear of missing out (Przybylski et al., 2013). Moreover, people who do not have the needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness satisfied as well as people with a low level of satisfaction with life more often experience a fear of missing out (Przybylski et al., 2013). According to Beyens, Frison, and Eggermont (Beyens et al., 2016), the fear of missing out is a mediator of the relationship between an increased need to belong and an increased need for popularity and higher Facebook use. It was also found to be linked with the stress caused by Facebook use. In a different study, FoMO was related to problematic smartphone use, depression (inversely), anxiety, and need for touch (Elhai et al., 2016). It has been found that FoMO might contribute to negative mood or depressed feelings (Wortham, 2011). What is more, FOMO mediated the link between psychopathology and the use of mobile devices (Oberst et al., 2017). Based on these results, it seems of paramount importance for sustaining mental health to find out more about this still largely unexplored construct. As the number of Facebook users keeps increasing, and as the number of people affected by Facebook intrusion is even greater (Błachnio et al., 2016b), we ought to look for its determinants. In our study we hypothesized that the fear of missing out would be positively associated with Facebook intrusion.

The personality trait that manifests itself in an infatuation and obsession with oneself and in an aspiration to attain self-gratification, achieve dominance, and satisfy ambition is called narcissism (Bushman and Baumeister, 1998). Previous studies revealed that the level of narcissism is linked with differences in Facebook use. Facebook users with a higher level of narcissism more frequently updated their status (Ong et al., 2011). It was also found that narcissism is related with some aspects of Facebook use (Błachnio et al., 2016e). In that study, narcissism was a positive predictor of personal importance, instrumental Facebook use, social Facebook use, and Facebook intensity. People who scored higher on narcissism attached greater importance to Facebook, were more active on Facebook, and they spent more time using it. For narcissistic users, Facebook is a tool for social and promotional purposes. They have more friends on Facebook (Gentile et al., 2012) and they want to promote themselves there (Buffardi and Campbell, 2008, Carpenter, 2012, Mehdizadeh, 2010, Ryan and Xenos, 2011).

There is a question that remains unanswered: how is Facebook use related to life satisfaction? Life satisfaction is the cognitive appraisal of one's life quality (Diener et al., 1985). Studies on the associations between Facebook use and satisfaction with life yielded inconsistent results. Some results indicate a positive association (Grieve et al., 2013, Valenzuela et al., 2009), while others show a completely different direction of the relationship (Chan, 2014, Kross et al., 2013). In the latter study, Kross and colleagues (Kross et al., 2013) used a longitudinal approach in assessing the relation between Facebook use and life satisfaction. Facebook users took part in an online survey for 14 consecutive days. It was shown that life satisfaction decreased after this period. Excessive Facebook use was negatively related to life satisfaction (Akin and Akin, 2015), subjective vitality, and subjective happiness (Uysal et al., 2013). A study by Błachnio, Przepiorka, and Pantic (Błachnio et al., 2016d) showed that only Facebook intensity (not Facebook addiction) was negatively related to satisfaction with life. The users who were addicted to Facebook had the lowest level of life satisfaction in comparison with other Facebook users. We addressed this issue in the current study and included the construct of life satisfaction in the tested model.

According to a number of studies, there are some differences in Facebook use found between different age groups e.g., (Grieve and Kemp, 2015, Dhir and Torsheim, 2016). Therefore, including Facebook users’ age in our analyses seems to be a good way of searching for new explanations of the Facebook phenomenon. In earlier research, older age was found to be related to less frequent Facebook use and to a smaller number of friends (Murphy, 2012). Younger age was positively associated with using Facebook for the purpose of socializing (Kezer et al., 2016). Some age-related differences were found in privacy concerns and self-disclosure: older users were more concerned about their privacy, while younger users disclosed more personal information on Facebook (Błachnio et al., 2016a).

In spite of the large body of studies on Facebook use reported in the literature (Błachnio et al., 2013), new investigations are needed. The main purpose of the present study was to examine the role of narcissism, fear of missing out, and life satisfaction in Facebook intrusion. A model was created to test those relationships. We hypothesized the paths that are depicted in Fig. 1: narcissism, fear of missing out, and age predicting Facebook intrusion as well as narcissism, fear of missing out, age, and Facebook intrusion predicting life satisfaction.

In previous research it was found that narcissism was correlated with Facebook intensity (Błachnio et al., 2016d) and with different aspects of Facebook activity (Błachnio et al., 2016a, Błachnio et al., 2016b, Błachnio et al., 2016c, Błachnio et al., 2016d; Ong et al., 2011). Additionally, fear of missing out was found to be linked with smartphone addiction (Elhai et al., 2016). Young people use Facebook more often, and this is probably one of the reasons why they often become more involved in Facebook.

We therefore hypothesized that high levels of narcissism and fear of missing out as well as young age would be associated with Facebook intrusion (H1).

There are no studies confirming the direct relation between Facebook intrusion and satisfaction with life or narcissism. A previous study suggested that there was no correlation between Facebook addiction and satisfaction with life (Błachnio et al., 2016d), while other findings suggested the existence of a negative association of general mood and overall life satisfaction with fear of missing out (Przybylski et al., 2013). We expected that low levels of Facebook intrusion, fear of missing out, and narcissism as well as age would be related to satisfaction with life (H2).

There are findings indicating that young people have a higher tendency to develop a fear of missing out (Przybylski et al., 2013). By its very nature, narcissism involves an urge to present oneself and an obsession with oneself (Bushman and Baumeister, 1998) as well as a tendency to compare oneself with others and to present oneself in a better way. For narcissistic people, the fear of missing out can be a way of making sure that no other person comes out better in self-presentation. We therefore predicted that fear of missing out would be related to narcissism and young age (H3).

We tested the hypotheses (H1–H3) on the associations between variables using Pearson's correlations. In addition, to test the model of the predictors of Facebook intrusion, we performed structural equation modeling (SEM). The analyses were carried out by means of the lavaan package (Rosseel, 2011), in the R Environment (Team, 2014).

Section snippets

Participants and procedure

The participants were 360 Facebook users; 64% of the sample were women. All the participants were Polish. Their age ranged from 16 to 53, with a mean age of M = 22.22 years (SD = 6.84).

The snowball procedure was applied while recruiting the participants. We prepared an electronic version of the questionnaires and emailed the link to undergraduate students, requesting them to post it on their Facebook wall. We also sent link with the questionnaires to Facebook users with a request to spread the

Descriptive analyses

The descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations for all the variables) and Pearson's r correlations between the variables are presented in Table 1. Facebook intrusion was correlated positively with fear of missing out (Pearson's r = .45, p < .001) and narcissism (Pearson's r = .32, p < .001). What is more, there is a negative association between Facebook intrusion and age (Pearson's r = − .15, p < .01).

The testing of the model of the role of age, narcissism, fear of missing out, and satisfaction with life in Facebook intrusion

We computed a full (saturated) model, with all possible paths included (Table 2).

Discussion

The main aim of the present exploratory study was to examine the associations Facebook intrusion with age, narcissism, fear of missing out, and life satisfaction. The current study was the first to examine how these variables are interrelated. The results of the study revealed several interesting predictors of excessive Facebook use. The results showed that narcissism, fear of missing out, and satisfaction with life are also directly linked with Facebook intrusion.

As predicted, a higher level

Conclusion

The popularity of social media, especially Facebook, is still increasing. Some users are strongly involved in Facebook. Given the great impact of this networking site on different areas of life: social, professional, personal, cultural, and other, getting to know the mechanism behind Facebook intrusion seems to be of a great value. Our findings provide a more comprehensive picture of the predictors of Facebook intrusion and reveal interesting patterns. The variables included in the analyses

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the NCN No. 2014/15/B/HS6/03129.

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