Abstract
Studies have rarely investigated the association between extrinsic motivation and social media fatigue. This study aims to examine the mediating role of Fear of missing out (FOMO) and problematic social media use in the association between extrinsic academic motivation and social media fatigue. A total of 399 college students (43% males) completed measures of extrinsic academic motivation, FOMO, problematic social media use, and social media fatigue. The results showed that FOMO mediated the relationship between extrinsic academic motivation and problematic social media use; problematic social media use mediated the association between FOMO and social media fatigue; extrinsic academic motivation fostered social media fatigue either through FOMO or problematic social media use, or through these two factors together; and the indirect mediation effects between extrinsic academic motivation and social media fatigue through problematic social media use were larger than the single mediation effect of FOMO and their serial mediation effects. In addition, the indirect effects of the three subconstructs of extrinsic academic motivation (external regulation, introjected regulation, and identified regulation) on social media fatigue follow a trend of gradual decline. The findings and implications of this study are presented and discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, S. K., Williford, D. N., Vaccaro, A., Kisler, T. S., Francis, A., & Newman, B. (2017). The young and the restless: Socializing trumps sleep, fear of missing out, and technological distractions in first-year college students. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 22(3), 337–348. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2016.1181557.
Alt, D. (2015). College students’ academic motivation, media engagement and fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 49, 111–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.02.057.
Alt, D. (2018). Students’ wellbeing, fear of missing out, and social media engagement for leisure in higher education learning environments. Current Psychology, 37(1), 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-016-9496-1.
Andreassen, C. S., Billieux, J., Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., Demetrovics, Z., Mazzoni, E., & Pallesen, S. (2016). The relationship between addictive use of social media and video games and symptoms of psychiatric disorders: A large-scale cross-sectional study. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 30(2), 252–262. https://doi.org/10.1037/adb0000160.
Baker, Z. G., Krieger, H., & LeRoy, A. S. (2016). Fear of missing out: Relationships with depression, mindfulness, and physical symptoms. Translational Issues in Psychological Science, 2(3), 275–282. https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000075.
Blackwell, D., Leaman, C., Tramposch, R., Osborne, C., & Liss, M. (2017). Extraversion, neuroticism, attachment style and fear of missing out as predictors of social media use and addiction. Personality and Individual Differences, 116, 69–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.039.
Bright, L. F., & Logan, K. (2018). Is my fear of missing out (FOMO) causing fatigue? Advertising, social media fatigue, and the implications for consumers and brands. Internet Research, 28(5), 1213–1227. https://doi.org/10.1108/IntR-03-2017-0112.
Bright, L. F., Kleiser, S. B., & Grau, S. L. (2015). Too much Facebook? An exploratory examination of social media fatigue. Computers in Human Behavior, 44, 148–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.048.
Cao, X., Khan, A. N., Zaigham, G. H., & Khan, N. A. (2019). The stimulators of social media fatigue among students: Role of moral disengagement. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 57(5), 1083–1107. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735633118781907.
Casale, S., Rugai, L., & Fioravanti, G. (2018). Exploring the role of positive metacognitions in explaining the association between the fear of missing out and social media addiction. Addictive Behaviors, 85, 83–87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.05.020.
Chawinga, W. D. (2017). Taking social media to a university classroom: Teaching and learning using twitter and blogs. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 14(1), 3. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-017-0041-6.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. New York: Plenum.
Dhir, A., Yossatorn, Y., Kaur, P., & Chen, S. (2018). Online social media fatigue and psychological wellbeing—A study of compulsive use, fear of missing out, fatigue, anxiety and depression. International Journal of Information Management, 40, 141–152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2018.01.012.
Dhir, A., Kaur, P., Chen, S., & Pallesen, S. (2019). Antecedents and consequences of social media fatigue. International Journal of Information Management, 48, 193–202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.05.021.
Elhai, J. D., Levine, J. C., Dvorak, R. D., & Hall, B. J. (2016). Fear of missing out, need for touch, anxiety and depression are related to problematic smartphone use. Computers in Human Behavior, 63, 509–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.05.079.
Elhai, J. D., Rozgonjuk, D., Liu, T., & Yang, H. (2020). Fear of missing out predicts repeated measurements of greater negative affect using experience sampling methodology. Journal of Affective Disorders, 262, 298–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.11.026.
GlobalWebIndex. (2019). GlobalWebIndex’s flagship report on the latest trends in social media. Retrieved January 2020, from https://www.globalwebindex.com/
Hawi, N. S., & Samaha, M. (2017). The relations among social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in university students. Social Science Computer Review, 35(5), 576–586. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439316660340.
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. Guilford Publications, New York, NY.
Ilakkuvan, V., Johnson, A., Villanti, A. C., Evans, W. D., & Turner, M. (2019). Patterns of social media use and their relationship to health risks among young adults. Journal of Adolescent Health, 64(2), 158–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.06.025.
Lim, S. Y., & Chapman, E. (2015). Adapting the academic motivation scale for use in pre-tertiary mathematics classrooms. Mathematics Education Research Journal, 27(3), 331–357. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13394-014-0140-9.
Lin, S.-C., Tsai, K.-W., Chen, M.-W., & Koo, M. (2013). Association between fatigue and internet addiction in female hospital nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 69(2), 374–383. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2012.06016.x.
Malik, A., Dhir, A., Kaur, P., & Johri, A. (2020). Correlates of social media fatigue and academic performance decrement. Information Technology & People. Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ITP-06-2019-0289, ahead-of-print.
Menkhoff, T., Chay, Y. W., Bengtsson, M. L., Woodard, C. J., & Gan, B. (2015). Incorporating microblogging (“tweeting”) in higher education: Lessons learnt in a knowledge management course. Computers in Human Behavior, 51, 1295–1302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.063.
Milyavskaya, M., Saffran, M., Hope, N., & Koestner, R. (2018). Fear of missing out: Prevalence, dynamics, and consequences of experiencing FOMO. Motivation and Emotion, 42(5), 725–737. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-018-9683-5.
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014.
Reinecke, L., Vorderer, P., & Knop, K. (2014). The role of intrinsic and extrinsic need satisfaction for the enjoyment of Facebook use. Journal of Communication, 64, 417–438. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12099.
Richter, K. (2018). Fear of missing out, social media abuse, and parenting styles. Digital commons @ ACU, electronic theses and dissertations. Paper 81. Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/etd/81. Accessed 28 Jul 2020.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55, 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68.
Ryan, R, M., & Deci, E, L. (2017). Self-determination theory: Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. Guilford Press, New York, NY.
Shao, J., Zhang, L., Ren, Y., Xiao, L., & Zhang, Q. (2018). Parent-child cohesion, basic psychological needs satisfaction, and emotional adaptation in left-behind children in China: An indirect effects model. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01023.
Sheldon, K. M., Abad, N., & Hinsch, C. (2011). A two-process view of Facebook use and relatedness need-satisfaction: Disconnection drives use, and connection rewards it. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100(4), 766–775. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022407.
Sriwilai, K., & Charoensukmongkol, P. (2016). Face it, don't Facebook it: Impacts of social media addiction on mindfulness, coping strategies and the consequence on emotional exhaustion. Stress and Health, 32(4), 427–434. https://doi.org/10.1002/smi.2637.
Tang, J. H., Chen, M. C., Yang, C. Y., Chung, T. Y., & Lee, Y. A. (2016). Personality traits, interpersonal relationships, online social support, and Facebook addiction. Telematics and Informatics, 33(1), 102–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2015.06.003.
Vallerand, R. J., Pelletier, L. G., Blais, M. R., Brière, N. M., Senécal, C., & Vallières, E. F. (1992). The academic motivation scale: A measure of intrinsic, extrinsic, and amotivation in education. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 52, 1003–1017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013164492052004025.
Williams, G. C., Rodin, G. C., Ryan, R. M., Grolnick, W. S., & Deci, E. L. (1998). Autonomous regulation and long-term medication adherence in adult outpatients. Health Psychology, 17(3), 269–276. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.17.3.269.
Xue, S., & Churchill, D. (2019). A review of empirical studies of affordances and development of a framework for educational adoption of mobile social media. Educational Technology Research and Development, 67(5), 1231–1257. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-019-09679-y.
Zhang, Y., Liu, Y., Li, W., Peng, L., & Yuan, C. (2020). A study of the influencing factors of mobile social media fatigue behavior based on the grounded theory. Information Discovery and Delivery, 48/2(2020), 91–102. https://doi.org/10.1108/IDD-11-2019-0084.
Funding
The authors have no funding to disclose.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Shen was mainly responsible for data analysis and writing the paper. Zhang contributed to data collection and revision of the paper. Xin led the project and also made revision to the paper.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Code Availability
Not applicable.
Consent to Participate
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shen, Y., Zhang, S. & Xin, T. Extrinsic academic motivation and social media fatigue: Fear of missing out and problematic social media use as mediators. Curr Psychol 41, 7125–7131 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01219-9
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-01219-9