The Effect Of Fear Of Missing Out On Mobile Phone Addiction Among Secondary Vocational Students:Cross-sectional And Longitudinal Studies

The rapid development of science and technology has brought great convenience to our life.As a product of the Internet,mobile phone is indispensable in our daily life.However,it is also a "double-edged sword".Excessive use of mobile phones can do certain harm to people’s physical and mental health.Through the continuous research on mobile phone addiction,Psychologists found that there are many factors affect how often people use their phone and the degree of addiction,such as self-control,bad mood and so on.According to the Self-Determination Theory,effective self-regulation is related to the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs(autonomy,competence and relationship).If these three basic psychological needs are not satisfied,the individual will have the fear of missing out(FOMO).As a special group of middle school students,vocational school students have more free time and light learning tasks comparing with ordinary high school students.At the same time,they have poor self-control ability.Therefore,the use of mobile phones is more common,which is more likely to lead to mobile phone addiction.Based on the above reasons,this study will be an empirical study which use the combination of cross-sectional and longitudinal methods.Study 1 explored the intermediation of self-control in the relationship between fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction.The self-control ability scale,fear of missing out scale and mobile phone addiction index scale were used to investigate vocational school students.The results showed that :(1)There were significant gender differences between mobile phone addiction and fear of missing out;There was no significant difference in self-control between the sexes.(2)There are significant differences in self-control among grades;There was no significant difference between mobile phone addiction and fear of missing out at grade level.(3)fear of missing out was negatively correlated with self-control;Self-control was negatively correlated with mobile phone addiction.Fear of missing out is positively correlated with mobile phone addiction.(4)Self-control played a mediating role between fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction.In the second study,500 students were followed to see if the relationship held up over time.The results showed that :(1)Fear of missing out,self-control and mobile phone addiction showed significant changes in all three measures;(2)Self-control played a longitudinal mediating role between fear of missing out and mobile phone addiction.In conclusion,the results of both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies indicate that fear of missing out can not only directly predict mobile phone addiction,but also influence mobile phone addiction through self-control as a mediating variable.This not only expands the relevant research on fear of missing out,self-control and mobile phone addiction,but also provides empirical basis and educational suggestions for reducing the level of mobile phone addiction of secondary vocational students.