Impact of Loneliness and Fear of Missing Out on Phubbing Behavior among Millennials

Abstract

The internet and smartphones have aimed to be a way to socialize and keep one amused, and the younger generations have been enslaved to these advances by their fascination with social networking sites (SNS). Despite the fact that stated purpose of technology like smartphones is to help people connect with each other’s, in this specific instance, it does the opposite of it. Ironically, the technology that was envisaged to bring humans closer together has isolated them from these very same people. As a result, the current research looked into the role of isolation, fear of missing out, and phubbing among millennials. Cross-sectional research design was used to conduct this study and survey method was used to collect data from participants who were 400 Millennials (170 males and 230 females) taken from the city of Multan, Pakistan. Convenient sampling technique was used for data collection. UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) The variables were measured using the Loneliness Scale Version 3, the Fear of Missing Scale, and the Phubbing Scale. The results of this study suggested that the relationship between loneliness, fear of missing out and phubbing behavior among millennials was significantly positive. Regression analysis was done to explore the impact of loneliness and Fear of missing out on phubbing behavior. However, the results further indicated that fear of missing out has a larger influence on phubbing than loneliness. Further finding of the current study was concerned with loneliness, fear of missing out and phubbing towards gender through t-test. The results found that females have high level of loneliness as compared to males; hence, phubbing behavior is higher in females than males. The findings also showed that fear of missing out do not vary in terms of gender. So, phubbing behavior equally affects male and female. In short, it is concluded that phubbing is a nuance concept and not widely researched in Pakistan. Finally, the observations of current study helped in identification and eradication of this behavior and added to the existing research literature