Department of Communication, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea.
Stan Richards School of Advertising and Public Relations, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2021 Nov;24(11):762-766. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2020.0431. Epub 2021 Apr 20.
Mounting research shows negative psychological effects for social media and recognizes fear of missing out (FoMO) as a key driver of social media use. This article focuses on social media influencers (SMIs) and investigates potentially positive forms of usage on psychological well-being (i.e., happiness), including how FoMO impacts consumer response to SMIs. A serial mediation model using survey data ( = 604) indicates SMI-related activities are positively associated with a consumer's happiness. Furthermore, SMI-related activities jointly and positively mediate the relationship between FoMO and happiness. Individuals higher in FoMO more frequently visited SMIs' account profiles leading to more frequent purchasing of products recommended by SMIs, which in turn positively influenced happiness. Implications of the findings are discussed with suggestions for future research.
越来越多的研究表明社交媒体会产生负面的心理影响，并认识到错失恐惧（FoMO）是社交媒体使用的一个关键驱动因素。本文聚焦于社交媒体影响者（SMI），并研究了社交媒体使用对心理健康（即幸福感）的潜在积极形式，包括 FoMO 如何影响消费者对 SMI 的反应。使用调查数据（n=604）的序列中介模型表明，与 SMI 相关的活动与消费者的幸福感呈正相关。此外，与 SMI 相关的活动共同并积极地调解了 FoMO 和幸福感之间的关系。FoMO 程度较高的个体更频繁地访问 SMI 的账户资料，从而更频繁地购买 SMI 推荐的产品，这反过来又积极影响了幸福感。本文讨论了研究结果的意义，并提出了未来研究的建议。
