Relationship Between Fear Of Missing Out And Social Media Addiction Among Middle School Students ——The Moderating Role Of Self-control

Social media addiction refers to an individual’s negative psychological dependence on social media,and as a group that is more active in social media use and susceptible to social media addiction,the addictive nature of social media use among secondary school students has gradually attracted the attention of mental health educators.Research on the factors influencing social media addiction reveals that fear of missing out is an important predictor of social media addiction,and fear of missing out refers to a diffuse anxiety caused by the fear of missing out on others’ information,and individuals with high levels of fear of missing out tend to use social media to reduce their anxiety.Therefore,it is speculated that self-control may play a moderating role in the relationship between the fear of missing out and social media addiction among middle school students.In this study,we investigated the relationship between fear of missing out and social media addiction,and included self-control to better investigate its mechanism.The study used an online questionnaire to survey and study secondary school students,using the Fear of Error Scale,the Self-Control Scale and the Social Media Addiction Scale to measure the overall level of fear of error,self-control and social media addiction among secondary school students.A total of 685 questionnaires were collected in this study,and 665 valid questionnaires were obtained after eliminating invalid questionnaires,with a valid return rate of 97.08%.The study used SPSS25.0 to analyze and process the collected data.The results of the study were as follows.（1）Fear of missing out was significantly and positively correlated with social media addiction and with self-control;self-control was positively correlated with social media addiction.（2）Self-control plays a moderating role in the relationship between fear of missing out and social media addiction.The study concluded that.（1）Fear of missing out can significantly and positively predict social media addiction,and is a significant predictor of social media addiction.（2）Fear of loss can influence social media addiction through self-control,and the higher the self-control ability of secondary school students,the greater the predictive effect of fear of loss on social media addiction.