2023-05-08 14:15:52
An international team has studied the factors involved in the appearance of obsessive use of social networks by young people to find out what their friends and other people around them are doing.
The team is made up of Christiane Arrivillaga from the University of Malaga in Spain, Jon D. Elhai and Caleb J. Hallauer from the University of Toledo in the United States, and Christian Montag, from the University of Ulm in Germany.
The study analyzes how emotional dysregulation and ‘FOMO’ (for the acronym in English of “Fear of Missing Out”, the latter understood as the fear of missing out on experiences, together with the need to be online to know what they are doing other people, act as predictors of possible problematic use of mobile phones among young people.
According to this work, presenting difficulties for emotional regulation (lack of clarity and emotional awareness, denial of emotion…), increases the probability of feeling ‘FOMO’, which can increase the risk of excessive and problematic use of mobile devices. .
The research was carried out with about 350 college students from the Midwestern United States. The results indicate that the difficulty to control impulses when negative emotions are felt is the most relevant emotional regulation factor among young people that explains higher levels of ‘FOMO’.
“Social networks show almost live experiences through the screen that the user of the device is not part of, generating discomfort and concern for not being there at that moment,” says Arrivillaga.
The fear of missing out on experiences, together with the need to be online to find out what other people are doing, act together with emotional dysregulation as predictors of possible problematic mobile phone use among young people. The new study has delved into this. (Photo: University of Malaga)
This study therefore shows that the abusive use of mobile phones could be based on a psychological need that is not satisfied and that is linked to a deep fear of social rejection.
The expert assures that the best way to “double” these effects is to “train” emotional intelligence with strategies that improve emotional attention, based on the identification of indicators of physical alteration, accompanied by regulation strategies, such as breathing, to avoid impulsive reaction.
In this sense, the researcher adds that having difficulties to control impulses is not strictly the same as being impulsive, which is a personality trait, “for this reason, efforts can be made to provide people with tools that help them manage states more negative moods, which would also help to reduce ‘FOMO’ and, therefore, problematic mobile phone use and its associated consequences”.
The study is titled “Emotion dysregulation factors associated with problematic smartphone use severity: The mediating role of fear of missing out”. And it has been published in the academic journal Addictive Behaviors. (Source: University of Malaga)
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