Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY-PSIKOLOJI CALISMALARI DERGISI, cilt.42, sa.1, ss.71-103, 2022 (ESCI)
With the emergence of the concept of fear of missing out (FoMO), the number of academic publications on this subject continues to increase. Although individuals generally experience the FoMO feeling in the context of social media, the scales used for the operationalization of FoMO do not directly focus on this context. Moreover, in the previous studies of FoMO scales adapted to Turkish, the psychometric characteristics had not been adequately evaluated. Therefore, adapting a FoMO scale to Turkish in the context of social media, which is robust in terms of psychometric characteristics, can address this gap. This study aims to adapt the new and updated FoMO scale (Zhang et al., 2020) to Turkish in the context of social media. Two samples of data were collected from participants across Turkey, who are over 18 years and are social media users, by using an online survey. An exploratory factor analysis was used for the first sample (N = 251) and a two-factor structure emerged as personal and social FoMO similar to the original updated scale. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed on the second sample (N = 353); goodness of fit values of the model were sufficient and thus the scale and its two-factor structure were confirmed. The scale was further found to have convergent and discriminant validity. Moreover, the goodness of fit values of the model were found to be at a sufficient level because of the second-order CFA, wherein FoMO is a higher-order construct. Furthermore, the path analysis was conducted to evaluate the antecedent variables of FoMO. FoMO positively predicted smartphone addiction, average daily social media usage time, and average daily social media checking frequency. An analysis of the data collected from both samples revealed the internal consistency and composite reliability of the scale, and all items in the scale could be distinguished by the participants. Therefore, this study makes significant contributions to the use of the updated FoMO scale as a valid and reliable measurement tool in examining FoMO in the social media context.