Social Media Use and Fear of Missing out: An Exploratory Cross-Sectional Study in Junior High Students from Western Mexico

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript addresses the important topic of fear of missing out in young adolescents. The study includes a large sample size, relevant statistics, and the data are presented and described appropriately. Please consider the following guidelines:

1. The topic of the article is not a pediatric study per se - it is a sociological and psychological study of adolescents. I would suggest considering another MDPI journal

2. You insist that COVID-19 is a special time for FoMO, which is relevant to your study. Please include a theoretical review of this topic in the background.

3. Are there any psychological models of FoMO? You consider SDT theory - however, there does not seem to be any specific research on this topic.

4. Please state your hypothesis.

5. If you validated the scale, please provide the validation results in the Methods section. Do you have any information on the validity of the scale, not just its consistency?

6. In the Results section, could you provide an ANOVA to look for interaction effects of gender, shift schooling, and social media use on FoMO. It is unclear at this point whether these are separate effects, as they emerge in separate analyses.

7. Please provide p levels for the correlations.

8. I see an important limitation in measuring social media use: “how many days a week” does not capture frequency, such as “how intensely” or “how long.”

9. You conclude that FoMO is common based on the mean score of 1.79 on the 1-5 Liker scale. Could you explain this conclusion?

10. The conclusions now provide practical implications rather than a summary of the findings.

Author Response

The manuscript addresses the important topic of fear of missing out in young adolescents. The study includes a large sample size, relevant statistics, and the data are presented and described appropriately. Please consider the following guidelines:

1. The topic of the article is not a pediatric study per se - it is a sociological and psychological study of adolescents.I would suggest considering another MDPI journal
   1. While it is true that the research presented in our article corresponds to a topic in the field of psychology, this topic potentially affects the health of children and/or adolescents, and it still belongs to the field of pediatrics. In addition, our article was submitted to the pediatric psychology section (with interest in the special issue on mental health and psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents), so we consider our research to be relevant and appropriate for Pediatric Reports.
2. You insist that COVID-19 is a special time for FoMO, which is relevant to your study.Please include a theoretical review of this topic in the background.
   1. Following your recommendation, we have added more information about the importance of COVID-19 in FoMO, both in the Introduction and in the Discussion of Results.
3. Are there any psychological models of FoMO?You consider SDT theory - however, there does not seem to be any specific research on this topic.
   1. FoMO is a term used to refer to a pervasive apprehension that others are having rewarding experiences in our absence, using this definition, several studies have found a relationship between this apprehension and different negative psychological states, such as anxiety, depression, among others. The mention of self-determination theory in the case of FoMO is to explain why this apprehension can cause or mediate these negative effects on mental health. Research on self-determination theory has focused on studies that test different contrasting implications derived from a person's psychological structure and behavior using SDT [for example see references below], and it is the only theory that has been linked as a tentative explanation for the effects of FoMO on mental health, as well as its defining manifestation, and it is cited in all the studies we know of on FoMO when trying to account for a possible explanation for its clinical manifestation and implications for mental health.
   2. Reference:
      1. Huang H, Wang HHX, Donaghy E, Henderson D, Mercer SW. Using self-determination theory in research and evaluation in primary care. Health Expect. 2022 Dec;25(6):2700-2708
      2. Morsink S, Van der Oord S, Antrop I, Danckaerts M, Scheres A. Studying Motivation in ADHD: The Role of Internal Motives and the Relevance of Self Determination Theory. J Atten Disord. 2022 Jun;26(8):1139-1158
4. Please state your hypothesis.
   1. 1. 1. The underlying hypothesis of our research is that, in addition to access to and time of exposure to social networks, the type of social networks used and demographic characteristics (such as the type of school shift attended by adolescents or the type of family structure) influence the intensity of FoMO perception. Although this hypothesis underlies our research, our primary objective is purely descriptive, given the lack of studies on FoMO in our patient population and the scarcity of studies conducted in this age group. In addition, we hypothesized that the changes in social and family dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused an increase in the time spent by children and adolescents on the Internet, could be useful to facilitate the description of the social media platforms used, as well as to generate a better contrast in the social media platforms that could be most associated with the perception of FoMO. In the last part of the introduction and before the methodology, we have clarified our underlying working hypothesis in this study.
5. If you validated the scale, please provide the validation results in the Methods section.Do you have any information on the validity of the scale, not just its consistency?
   1. 1. Unfortunately, although the FoMO scale used is validated in its original version, we do not have validation of the translation of this scale for use in our population context. The original version of the FoMO was translated into Spanish using the reverse translation method, in which two bilingual translators translated the score into Spanish and two other experienced translators independently translated it back into English, resolving the minimal discrepancies by consensus. The agreed translation was then reviewed by an expert in English and an expert in Spanish, and the words were adapted to the social context of the population in which we would use them. Therefore, we lack information on dimensionality, reliability and validity. This was not possible because the size and type of study we would have had to carry out to obtain these data would have been difficult for us in terms of the material and human resources required. We have added a reference to the lack of validation of the translation used in our study in the limitations section, and we have also added additional details about the translation process in the methodology section.
6. In the Results section, could you provide an ANOVA to look for interaction effects of gender, shift schooling, and social media use on FoMO.It is unclear at this point whether these are separate effects, as they emerge in separate analyses.
   1. 1. We have added the ANOVA results looking for the interaction effects of the variables you mentioned, as well as the discussion of the results and the corresponding methodology.
7. Please provide p levels for the correlations.
   1. 1. We have modified the presentation of the correlation results to conform to what is recommended by the APA, so we have placed the p of each of the correlations.
8. I see an important limitation in measuring social media use: “how many days a week” does not capture frequency, such as “how intensely” or “how long.
   1. 1. We agree that the use of social networks and their weight in the perception of FoMO could be related to the number of hours (which is a measure of intensity), but since we have no justification to separate users who use social networks intensively from those who do not, we prefer to treat it in a descriptive way only and relate the frequency of use to the number of days or habits of access to social networks. This carries the implicit assumption that regardless of how much or how little one can connect in a day (measured in hours), daily access to social networks can be causally or consequentially related to FoMO. This assumption stems from the fact that social network users constantly seek to be updated on the events of their social contacts, and therefore it seems to be important to be part of these events, either as a spectator or as a participant, which is directly related to how FoMO is described. We have added to the limitations the relative way of measuring and comparing the frequency of use, as well as adding a little more to the discussion regarding the interpretation of the meaning of this result.
9. You conclude that FoMO is common based on the mean score of 1.79 on the 1-5 Liker scale. Could you explain this conclusion?
   1. 1. In the discussion section as well as in the conclusions, we try to discuss not the frequency of FoMO in our population (because all users in our study presented some degree of FoMO and there is no consensus that defines a certain "normality" of this perception to speak of a truly pathological FoMO), but the magnitude of this perception, measured with the chosen scale. We mention this magnitude only in its descriptive character, since the studies consulted only mention associations that increase or decrease the perception of FoMO, as well as the negative consequences on mental health that they may have, which are directly related to the magnitude. In conclusion, our objective is to describe FoMO in terms of its magnitude, measured with the selected scale, and to relate differences in this perception according to different factors of the use of social networks and the social environment in which the subject operates. Nevertheless, we have modified the conclusions to include, in addition to the recommendations, a summary of our results.
10. The conclusions now provide practical implications rather than a summary of the findings.
    1. 1. We have added a summary of our results to the conclusions section.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article addresses a topic of interest and provides an adaptation of a tool to measure FOMO for use in the Mexican context. However, there are some areas for improvement that I would like to point out:

• I miss more studies on the effects of FOMO in the theoretical review section. In the first part of the article, only references 12 and 13 are mentioned, whereas the literature on this topic is quite extensive.
• The second-to-last paragraph of the introduction, which focuses on Mexico, should be placed before the introduction of FOMO in the first part of the introduction. This would follow the structure of moving from general to specific and maintain a coherent narrative flow.
• I believe there needs to be more contextualization regarding the pandemic. Although its effect on social dynamics is mentioned, and the study is framed during this period, there is no review of the literature related to this.
• In the design section, it is described as "non-observational," but I think it would be more appropriate to say "non-experimental" or "relational," as the authors prefer. Observational methods are not relevant to this study; rather, quantitative information is collected via questionnaires.
• A section on participants should be added, where the characteristics of the sample and reference population are detailed. Many of the data currently in Table 1, which is excessively long, could be moved here.
• I have a question for the authors, which may be worth justifying in the article. Why is an adaptation based on the English version rather than the Spanish version by Nuñez (2022)? Are there significant differences between the two tools for Spanish speakers?
• The statistical analyses are quite basic. Could they be complemented with additional inferential analyses to provide more detailed information and predictive power?

Author Response

The article addresses a topic of interest and provides an adaptation of a tool to measure FOMO for use in the Mexican context. However, there are some areas for improvement that I would like to point out:

1. I miss more studies on the effects of FOMO in the theoretical review section. In the first part of the article, only references 12 and 13 are mentioned, whereas the literature on this topic is quite extensive.
   • We appreciate your feedback. We have added new bibliographic references in the Introduction section that go into more detail about FoMO, its relationship to mental health, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
2. The second-to-last paragraph of the introduction, which focuses on Mexico, should be placed before the introduction of FOMO in the first part of the introduction. This would follow the structure of moving from general to specific and maintain a coherent narrative flow.
   • We have changed the text according to your suggestion.
3. I believe there needs to be more contextualization regarding the pandemic. Although its effect on social dynamics is mentioned, and the study is framed during this period, there is no review of the literature related to this.
   • Based on your and other reviewers' suggestions, we have added context (in the Introduction section) regarding the significance and uniqueness of the COVID-19 pandemic in FoMO.
4. In the design section, it is described as "non-observational," but I think it would be more appropriate to say "non-experimental" or "relational," as the authors prefer. Observational methods are not relevant to this study; rather, quantitative information is collected via questionnaires.
   • We have modified the description of our experimental design according to your suggestions.
5. A section on participants should be added, where the characteristics of the sample and reference population are detailed. Many of the data currently in Table 1, which is excessively long, could be moved here.
   • We have divided Table 1 into two tables, one of which contains only information on the characteristics of the population, while the other contains information on the type of social networks used, the devices used to access the networks, and measures of frequency of use.
6. I have a question for the authors, which may be worth justifying in the article. Why is an adaptation based on the English version rather than the Spanish version by Nuñez (2022)? Are there significant differences between the two tools for Spanish speakers?
   • The aforementioned study was published in 2022, the year in which we were already completing our study (we started applying the surveys in November 2021, so we did not have this translation available. Moreover, although it is true that Nuñez et al. carried out a validation and translation into Spanish of the FoMO scale, it was validated for use in the Colombian population. To date, there is no translation of the original scale for the Mexican population, which, although they speak the same language, has different ways of expressing themselves and using language.
7. The statistical analyses are quite basic. Could they be complemented with additional inferential analyses to provide more detailed information and predictive power?
   • We have added the results of an ANOVA analysis to look for interaction effects of some of the variables.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, the paper is well written and structured in a good manner.

Abstract, line 49: "s: FoMO is a prevalent phenomenon..." - the authors did not measure frequency of FoMo but mean values, so we do not anything about the prevalence rates. Please correct.

Literature in Introduction is substantial and contains every essential element. However, at the end of this chapter, the authors should more concretely describe study aims which reflect the ongoing statistical analyses.

Study sample is well described and well organized.

Regarding the Spanish version of the FoMo Scale, please add Cronbach's value to its description.

Results: Besides Mean and SD please give results of normality statistics and skewness and kurtosis of the scales (in a new Table, if feasible, however, due to word limit, a description with values may be enough).

Anyway, results are appropriate and the presentation of them are adequate (Table 1 and Table 2), however, when describing correlation coefficients, please use APA style and give values as well. 

Discussion

Lines 219-226: these results are not relevant here since all these studies apply a different age group (university students). Please apply references of studies with the same age group.

 

 

 

Author Response

Overall, the paper is well written and structured in a good manner.

1. Abstract, line 49: "s: FoMO is a prevalent phenomenon..." - the authors did not measure frequency of FoMo but mean values, so we do not anything about the prevalence rates. Please correct.
   • We appreciate your comment. We have corrected and modified the description of the conclusions in the abstract.
2. Literature in Introduction is substantial and contains every essential element. However, at the end of this chapter, the authors should more concretely describe study aims which reflect the ongoing statistical analyses.
   • Following your suggestion and that of another reviewer, we have modified the text before the Methods section to better describe our working hypothesis and objectives.
3. Study sample is well described and well organized.
   • We appreciate your comment.
4. Regarding the Spanish version of the FoMo Scale, please add Cronbach's value to its description.
   • The Cronbach's alpha of the Spanish scale was 0.76 and we mentioned it at the end of the first paragraph of Section 3.1 (FoMO scores and social media behavior).
5. Results: Besides Mean and SD please give results of normality statistics and skewness and kurtosis of the scales (in a new Table, if feasible, however, due to word limit, a description with values may be enough).
   • We have modified Table 2 (now Table 3 to simplify the presentation of the results) to add skewness and kurtosis.
6. Anyway, results are appropriate and the presentation of them are adequate (Table 1 and Table 2), however, when describing correlation coefficients, please use APA style and give values as well.
   • We have modified the presentation of the correlation results to conform to what is recommended by the APA, so we have placed the p of each of the correlations as well as the degrees of freedom.
7. Lines 219-226: these results are not relevant here since all these studies apply a different age group (university students). Please apply references of studies with the same age group.
   • As you mention, we compared the results with some studies carried out with a different age group than our study, but in the bibliographic review we did not find information from similar studies carried out in our age group, which could be due to the different national regulations on Internet access and which could reduce the relevance of studying FoMO in these age groups, but we believe that this is one of the novelties explored in our study, which describes a population that has constant and unlimited access (at least legally or normatively) to social networks regardless of age. For this reason, we mention in the limitations section that our results may not be comparable to other populations and may only reflect the characteristics of this age group.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

1. The topic of the paper is not pediatric research per se - that is sociological and psychological study on adolescents. I'd suggest to consider abother journal of MDPI

2.I still see the problem that there is a paper about just one relationship. However, I understand that it cannot be improved in this study