The Fear of Missing Out is not Fear: Evidence of Parallels and Distinctions Between FoMO and Regret

Bec L Thomson

A growing body of research documents the far-reaching and deleterious outcomes of the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), yet a fundamental scientific understanding of this construct remains elusive. Although the label “Fear of Missing Out” implies that fear is the emotion system driving FoMO, FoMO differs from fear on virtually all defining dimensions of the latter, including temporal focus and arousal duration. One untested hypothesis in the existing literature – the Regret Hypothesis – is that FoMO refers to inaction regret resulting from missing a rewarding social event. The activation of regret requires two antecedents: the perception that another decision would have been better, and a sense of internal responsibility. However, internal responsibility may not be necessary for experiencing FoMO. The present study aimed to determine whether the Regret Hypothesis can account for FoMO – or whether FoMO is independent of internal responsibility. In an online survey, 143 participants read one of four hypothetical scenarios varying the necessary antecedents of regret, and indicated the extent to which the scenario would make them feel FoMO, regret, and other emotions. Participants who missed a desirable event reported high FoMO, irrespective of whether they were responsible for missing that event. This responsibility-independent pattern of FoMO distinguishes it from regret. However, participants reported regret in a manner inconsistent with the scientific definition of this emotion, suggesting that they may have been mislabelling their affective state. Discussion focuses on the limitations of self-reports of emotions, and makes suggestions for future work on FoMO, both scientific and applied.

The Fear of Missing Out is not Fear: Evidence of Parallels and Distinctions Between FoMO and Regret

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