Vulnerable narcissism, fear of negative evaluation and fear of missing out as predictors of social media addiction

The aim of this study is to evaluate the predictive effect of fragile narcissism, fear of negative evaluation and fear of missing out on developments on social media addiction on a general population of young people and adults who use social media, aged between 18 and 60, with different educational levels. The research was carried out with a total of 500 people, 256 of whom were female and 244 of whom were male, reached through convenience sampling. Personal Information Form, Social Network Addiction Scale, Pathological Narcissism Inventory, Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale and Fear of Missing Developments in Social Environments Scale were used to collect data suitable for the purpose of the study and data collection was carried out through online platforms. The obtained scores were calculated using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) v26. Independent groups t-test was used to examine whether the participants' scores differed according to sociodemographic data and Pearson correlation coefficients were used to observe the relationships between variables. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictive effects of fragile narcissism, fear of missing developments and fear of negative evaluation on social media addiction. When it was examined whether the variables differed according to gender, it was found that the mean scores of the participants' fragile narcissism and fear of missing developments did not differ significantly according to gender. When it was examined whether the participants' total scores of social media addiction and fear of negative evaluation differed according to gender, it was observed that the mean total scores of female participants were higher than male participants. When the relationships between the variables were examined, it was found that there was a positive, moderately significant relationship between the dependent variable of the study, social media addiction, and the independent variables, fragile narcissism (r = .525), fear of missing out (r = .506) and fear of negative evaluation (r = .469). As a result of the multiple linear regression analysis performed to examine to what extent the independent variables predicted social media addiction, it was found that vulnerable narcissism (β = .291, p < .001) and fear of missing developments (β = .251, p < . 001) had a statistically significant linear relationship with social media addiction, 32% of the variance in social media addiction scores could be explained by the regression equation, and fear of negative evaluation (β = .099, p > .05) did not significantly predict social media addiction. The findings of the study were discussed within the framework of the related studies in the literature. As a result of the discussion, some suggestions were presented.