Sleep in the Social World of College Students: Bridging Interpersonal Stress and Fear of Missing Out with Mental Health

Abstract

Introduction: The college years are characterized by psychosocial and biological phenomena that may impact mental health, such as heightened sensitivity to social stressors and compromises in sleep quantity and quality. The current study uses a biopsychosocial approach to examine the associations among interpersonal stress, Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), insomnia, and mental health. Methods: Survey data were collected from 283 undergraduate students (90% female) with a mean age of 21.4 years. A path analysis was utilized to test a mediational model linking interpersonal stress and FoMO with mental health through a mediator of insomnia. We hypothesized that higher levels of interpersonal stress and FoMO would be associated with higher levels of insomnia symptoms, which would in turn be associated with poorer mental health. Results: As predicted, insomnia partially mediated significant associations of interpersonal stress and FoMO with mental health. The association of interpersonal stress with insomnia and mental health was more robust than the association of FoMO with these variables. Conclusions: The pathway from interpersonal stress and/or FoMO, through insomnia, to compromises in mental health may be modifiable through behavioral interventions focusing on coping skills, sleep hygiene, and even technology-related habit changes. Recommendations to help disrupt this pathway, particularly among college students, are discussed.

Anxiety and stress severity are related to greater fear of missing out on rewarding experiences: A latent profile analysis

“…Recent studies show that FOMO is related to perceived stress (Adams et al, 2020;Elhai et al, 2018). The FOMOstress relationship is also consistent with SDT, and with FOMO as a response to negative affectivity, which fits within I-PACE.…”

“…Furthermore, FOMO has shown small-to-medium positive associations with depression symptom severity and medium-to-large relationships with anxiety severity (Dempsey et al, 2019;Dhir, Yossatorn, Kaur, & Chen, 2018;Elhai et al, 2018;Elhai, Yang, Fang, Bai, & Hall, 2020). Additionally, FOMO demonstrates large positive correlations with perceived stress (Adams, Murdock, Daly-Cano, & Rose, 2020;Elhai et al, 2018). These findings have been revealed in studies spanning numerous parts of the world, including North and South America, Europe, and Asia .…”

Fear of Missing Out and Smartphone Addiction Mediates the Relationship Between Positive and Negative Affect and Sleep Quality Among Chinese University Students

“…Although, some scholars argue that the relationship between sleep quality and affect may be bidirectional ( 74 – 76 ), previous research has also shown that both positive and negative affect can mediate the impact of expressive suppression on sleep quality ( 73 , 77 ). Another recent study showed that insomnia partially mediated a significant association of interpersonal stress and FoMO with mental health ( 78 ). Moreover, the relationship between negative affect and sleep quality may also be mediated by smartphone addiction ( 79 ).…”

Validation and Psychometric Properties of the Chinese Version of the Fear of Missing Out Scale

“…Regarding the concurrent validity of Przybylski’s FoMO scale, previous studies have found that FoMO is not only positively associated with online problematic behaviors, such as social media disorder [ 22 ], smartphone addiction [ 23 ], and problematic internet use [ 14 ], but also has associated with psychopathological symptoms [ 24 ] and leads to negative consequences such as more phubbing behavior [ 2 ], poorer academic performance [ 25 ], more sleep problems [ 26 ], and lower well-being [ 27 ]. Therefore, it was expected that FoMO is positively associated with smartphone addiction but negatively associated with subjective well-being.…”