The technological revolution has increased the fear of missing out among individuals (FOMO). According to Buglass et al. (2017), low self-esteem has been exacerbated by the frequent use of social media platforms. The first study measured FOMO in 119 participants when they read that while their friends will be attending an event, they will not. The study’s independent variables (IVs) were “none”, “some”, and “all”, while the dependent variable (DV) was “the number of friends who agreed to attend the event”.
The study was based on two hypotheses. Firstly, higher FOMO feelings would be experienced by participants who imagined that they were the only ones unable to attend an event while all other social media friends attended. Additionally, being the only ones not attending an event, the participants would be more frustrated than those who imagined that some or none of their friends would not attend. The study’s predictions were supported by the findings since individuals who did not attend an event when all their friends attended were frustrated.
The second study measured FOMO by introducing a new variable, “scarcity in the number of tickets”. The study involved 209 participants who were subjected to a set of questions on the scarcity of products. The survey conditions, “limited” and “unlimited”, served as IVs while “the recall of how many tickets were available” was the DV. The study hypothesized that the participants would experience more negative feelings if they were told that “all” of their friends would attend an event.
Additionally, the study predicted that participants would exhibit more frustration and FOMO if the event’s tickets were limited rather than unlimited. The study results showed no significant differences between the participants who were told that all friends could attend and those told all friends were attending. While the event’s attendance had significant effects on the participants’ feelings, the number of tickets, limited or unlimited, had no effect. The findings of the two studies can be adopted by events marketers to encourage clients to tag. Along with their friends to events.
Reference
Buglass, S. L., Binder, J. F., Betts, L. R., Underwood, J. D. M. (2017). Motivators of online vulnerability: The impact of social network site use and FOMO. Computers in Human Behavior, 66, 248-255. Web.