The relationships between FoMO, ON-FoMO, smartphone addiction and narcissism: a study on italian young adults
Keywords:
Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), Online Fear of Missing Out (ON-FoMO), smartphone addiction, narcissismAbstract
The growing pervasiveness of social media and the intensive use of smartphones have raised questions about their psychological impact. Among the most studied phenomena are the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), defined as a pervasive concern of being excluded from rewarding experiences that others might be having, and its online-specific expression (ON-FoMO). The literature has suggested possible associations between these constructs, problematic smartphone use, and narcissism. This study investigates the associations between FoMO, ON-FoMO, smartphone addiction, and narcissism in a sample of 311 Italian young adults (66.2% female), aged between 18 and 35 years (M = 23.5; SD = 3.5). Three hypotheses were tested: (1) higher levels of FoMO are associated with higher levels of narcissism; (2) FoMO and narcissism are positively correlated; (3) there is a positive correlation between problematic smartphone use and narcissism. The results support the proposed hypotheses and show that both FoMO and smartphone addiction are significantly associated with narcissism. Moreover, FoMO emerges as the strongest predictor of both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, whereas ON-FoMO appears to be a significant predictor only of vulnerable narcissism. This study contributes to clarifying the relationships among the variables examined, showing how FOMO may foster narcissistic tendencies, driven not only by social media but also through smartphone use.
doi: 10.53240/2025topic4n1.3.003
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