Abstract

This study examined the effect of fear of missing out on relationship satisfaction among college students from the perspective of SNS addiction tendency. To this end, a multimodal model was established to examine the relationship between fear of missing out and relationship satisfaction and whether it is mediated by social anxiety, SNS addiction tendency, and phubbing. The fit of the model and the relevance of the variables were examined, and finally, the significance of the mediating effect was verified. The participants were 218 college students. Structural equation analysis was conducting to verify the research model. Analysis results showed that the mediation model adequately explained the data. In terms of the relationships between the variables, fear of missing out had a positive effect on social anxiety, SNS addiction tendency, and phubbing and a negative effect on relationship satisfaction. Social anxiety had a positive effect on SNS addiction tendency and a negative effect on relationship satisfaction. Social media addiction tendency had a positive effect on phubbing. Phubbing had a negative effect on relationship satisfaction. Finally, social anxiety, SNS addiction tendency, and phubbing significantly mediated the relationship between fear of missing out and relationship satisfaction. The significance of this study is that it confirms the mediating effect of phubbing on the relationship between fear of missing out and relationship satisfaction, thus indicating that phubbing is a mediator of lower interpersonal satisfaction.