Chapter 11 Further Reading: Fear of Missing Out

Foundational Research

1. Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848. The foundational paper that gave FOMO its rigorous academic definition and first systematic measurement instrument. Przybylski and colleagues ground FOMO in self-determination theory, demonstrating that it is associated with unmet needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Essential reading for anyone working on FOMO research; the ten-item scale developed here has become the standard instrument in the field.

2. Verduyn, P., Lee, D. S., Park, J., Shablack, H., Orvell, A., Bayer, J., ... & Ybarra, O. (2015). Passive Facebook usage undermines affective well-being: Experimental and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(2), 480–488. Landmark study establishing the distinction between passive and active social media use and their differential effects on wellbeing. Uses experience sampling methodology for ecological validity and a controlled laboratory experiment for causal inference. This paper is the basis for the recommendation that active engagement is psychologically preferable to passive consumption.

3. Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. The original articulation of social comparison theory, which provides the foundational framework for understanding why social media content triggers self-evaluation processes. Festinger's paper, now seventy years old, predicted with remarkable precision the dynamics of upward comparison that would become central to social media psychology.

Mental Health Effects

4. Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3–17. Large-scale analysis of national datasets demonstrating that increases in adolescent depression and suicidality correlate with increased social media adoption, particularly for girls. Controversial but important, this paper catalyzed the academic and public debate about social media's effects on adolescent mental health.

5. Hunt, M. G., Marx, R., Lipson, C., & Young, J. (2018). No more FOMO: Limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 37(10), 751–768. Randomized experiment limiting social media use to thirty minutes per day. Finds significant reductions in depression and loneliness in the limited-use group relative to controls. Provides strong causal evidence addressing the reverse-causality concern in observational studies.

6. Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Journal of Adolescence, 51, 41–49. Documents the relationship between problematic social media use and sleep disruption in adolescents, finding that sleep quality partially mediates the relationship between social media use and mental health outcomes. Particularly relevant to the FOMO-sleep connection discussed in this chapter.

7. Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-evaluation. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206–222. Experimental study demonstrating that exposure to idealized social media profiles produces lower self-evaluation on attractiveness and life success, even when participants are not explicitly instructed to compare. Provides laboratory evidence for the automatic, unintended nature of social comparison processes.

Evolutionary and Neurological Foundations

8. Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290–292. The original neuroimaging study demonstrating that social exclusion activates the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex — the same region involved in physical pain processing. Foundational for understanding why social exclusion produces genuine suffering rather than mere disappointment.

9. Lieberman, M. D. (2013). Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect. Crown Publishers. Accessible synthesis of the neuroscience of social connection and exclusion by one of the leading researchers in social neuroscience. Lieberman argues that the social brain is not a supplement to the "real" brain but its most fundamental feature, which provides the evolutionary context for understanding why FOMO is such a powerful experience. Written for a general audience without sacrificing scientific rigor.

10. Williams, K. D. (2007). Ostracism. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 425–452. Comprehensive review of the social psychology and neuroscience of ostracism, including the Cyberball research program. Williams synthesizes decades of research on why social exclusion is so aversive and what behavioral consequences it produces. Essential background for understanding the evolutionary and psychological substrate of FOMO.

Platform Design and FOMO

11. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs. Sweeping analysis of the business model underlying social media and data-driven platforms. Zuboff's concept of "surveillance capitalism" — the extraction of behavioral data to predict and shape behavior — provides a structural framework for understanding why FOMO mechanics are not accidental but economically rational features of platforms' extraction logic.

12. Harris, T. (2016, May). How technology is hijacking your mind — from a magician and Google design ethicist. Thrive Global (Medium). The influential essay by Center for Humane Technology founder Tristan Harris that crystallized the critique of social media as deliberately designed to exploit human psychology. Harris's background as a design ethicist at Google gives the piece unusual authority, and its viral spread helped bring design ethics discourse to mainstream audiences.

13. Alter, A. (2017). Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. Penguin Press. Psychologist Adam Alter examines the design features that make apps and games compulsively engaging, with substantial attention to FOMO mechanics. The book is particularly strong on the variable reward schedules and social comparison features that drive habitual use. Accessible without being superficial, it provides a useful complement to the academic literature.

Adolescent Development and Social Media

14. Twenge, J. M. (2017). iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy — and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. Atria Books. Psychologist Jean Twenge's argument that the generation born after 1995 has been shaped in fundamental ways by growing up with smartphones and social media. Though some of Twenge's claims about the severity of effects have been contested, the book draws on large national datasets and raises important questions about generational patterns.

15. Steinberg, L. (2014). Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Developmental psychologist Laurence Steinberg provides a comprehensive, research-grounded account of adolescent brain development, with particular attention to the heightened social sensitivity and reward responsiveness of the adolescent period. Understanding adolescent development is essential context for evaluating why FOMO is particularly powerful in teenage populations.

JOMO and Digital Wellbeing

16. Price, C. (2018). How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life. Ten Speed Press. Practical guide to reducing compulsive phone use, drawing on behavioral science and the emerging digital wellbeing literature. Price combines accessible explanation of psychological mechanisms with concrete behavioral strategies. A useful resource for students interested in applying this chapter's research to their own lives.

17. Orben, A., & Przybylski, A. K. (2019). The association between adolescent well-being and digital technology use. Nature Human Behaviour, 3(2), 173–182. Methodologically rigorous reanalysis of large datasets on digital technology use and adolescent wellbeing, finding that the effect sizes — while statistically significant — are smaller than commonly claimed in public discourse. This paper is important for calibrating the magnitude of social media's wellbeing effects and for understanding the difference between statistical significance and practical importance.

18. Valkenburg, P. M., Meier, A., & Beyens, I. (2022). Social media use and its impact on adolescent mental health: An umbrella review of the evidence. Current Opinion in Psychology, 44, 58–68. Comprehensive umbrella review synthesizing the major systematic reviews on social media and adolescent mental health. Valkenburg and colleagues emphasize that effects are heterogeneous — social media harms some users more than others — and that individual differences in vulnerability and use patterns matter enormously. Essential for understanding the state of the evidence as of the early 2020s.

19. Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., ... & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e69841. Important early study using ESM methodology to document that Facebook use during the day predicts worse affect at the next ESM prompt, and worse life satisfaction over a two-week period. This study helped establish the prospective relationship between social media use and wellbeing decline, and is part of the research program that preceded the landmark Verduyn 2015 paper.

20. Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). The relationship between addictive use of social media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey. Addictive Behaviors, 64, 287–293. Examines the relationship between social media addiction, narcissism, and self-esteem in a large Norwegian sample. Finds that addictive social media use is associated with lower self-esteem and that the narcissism-social media relationship is more complex than simple self-promotion theories suggest. Relevant to understanding the individual difference variables that moderate FOMO effects.