‘Rather too fat in the coffin, than to miss another party?’ The link between social media, Fear of Missing Out, and alcohol consumption among students.

*Disclaimer: Please note that parts of this English Sci-fly were automatically translated.*

*Note about the title: The Dutch translation of the title is a line from a Dutch song about not wanting to miss any party.

Social media plays an important role in the social lives of young people nowadays. Young people have the opportunity to be in constant contact with each other. Especially for young people who suffer from Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) – the feeling that you are missing out on fun experiences because you are not there – the temptation to keep a close eye on social media can be great. This way, you know exactly what is going on, and the chance of missing something is smaller. Frequent use of social media and the feeling of FoMO can thus lead to young people attending social events more often.

If we zoom in on the social lives of students, we see that these social events often revolve around alcohol. A lot of alcohol is consumed in nightlife, and student activities are organized that revolve around alcohol, such as beer cantus. Students therefore post a lot about alcohol on social media. Photos and videos are taken at those fun parties in the city and shared online with others. When seeing these images, the temptation to grab your bike and head into town can be very strong, especially for students who suffer from FoMO. This study therefore explores whether experiencing FoMO is related to students’ alcohol consumption, by looking at social media and by exposure to alcohol-related content on social media.

CORE

Main findings: The study shows that experiencing FoMO has a positive relationship with students’ alcohol consumption and the number of alcohol-related problems they experience. This is explained by the assumption that students with more FoMO check their social media more often during the day, exposing them to more alcohol-related content. This then leads to increased alcohol consumption and more alcohol-related problems.

Implications and recommendations: This study confirms that experiencing FoMO can be an important risk factor for problematic alcohol consumption among students. Until recently, research on social media and alcohol consumption focused primarily on exposure to alcohol-related content. The authors of this study suggest that there is a group that is more sensitive to this exposure, namely students who experience a lot of FoMO. If these students want to reduce their alcohol consumption, the authors suggest that they may benefit from checking their social media less often. An important next step would be to investigate this further through experimental research combined with longitudinal data, in order to draw conclusions about causality.

RESEARCH METHODS

What? This study was conducted to determine whether experiencing FoMO is associated with increased alcohol consumption, by more frequent checking of social media, and by greater exposure to alcohol-related content on social media.

Who? Participants in this study were 705 students from the United States (average age 20.23, 75.2% female).

How? The students were given a questionnaire that asked about the variables FoMO, social media use, exposure to alcohol-related content, and their own alcohol consumption. The data was examined cross-sectionally, with two serial mediation analyses being performed (one with alcohol consumption as the outcome measure and one with alcohol-related problems as the outcome measure). The significance of the mediation paths was assessed based on 10.000 bootstrapped confidence intervals.

SUMMARY

1. First, this study shows that experiencing more FoMO is related to more frequent checking of social media during the day.
2. Moreover, it shows that how often social media is checked per day is related to the amount of exposure to alcohol-related content on social media.
3. This is then related to higher alcohol consumption among students.
4. It is also related to experiencing more alcohol-related problems among students.

DETAILS

Ayala Guzman, R., Strowger, M., Kazlauskaite, K., & Braitman, A. L. (2025). Fear of Missing out Serially Mediated by Social Media Use and Alcohol-Related Content on Alcohol Outcomes Among College Students: A Cross-Sectional Examination. Psychological Reports, 00332941251314729. https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941251314729

This sci-fly was written by Nina Hoffland (Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University) for RAD-blog, the blog about smoking, alcohol, drugs and diet.