Project Director
Doyle, Kevin
Department Examiner
Howell, Ashley
Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
The unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 pandemic implores consideration for how the psychopathological constructs the fear of missing out, anxiety, and loneliness are affected within this context (Liverant et al., 2004; Rajkumar, 2020). These mental well-being variables also all appear in association with social media (Hunt et al., 2018; Caplan, 2007). While previous research has explored the initial impacts of the pandemic on mental well-being (Wang, Pan et al., 2020; Bu et al., 2020), this research further examines the effect on college students’ mental well-being in the pandemic alongside social media usage. I hypothesize that levels of the fear of missing out, anxiety, and loneliness in college students will be higher during the COVID-19 pandemic than previous historical samples. I hypothesize that there will be a significant relationship between social media and these variables. I hypothesize that social media usage explains the variance in levels of the fear of missing out, anxiety, and loneliness in college students. Results of this study found increased levels of the fear of missing out, anxiety, and loneliness in college students. These variables also were strongly correlated between each other and social media. Social media usage only explained 11.8% of the variance in the fear of missing out and less for loneliness and anxiety, 7.1% and 4.8% respectively (p < 0.05). Social media is contributing to the issue, but the pandemic poses a much larger issue that might be weighing more heavily on students.
Acknowledgments
Thank you Dr. Doyle for your continued support and encouragement. Thank you Dr. Howell for your gracious assistance.
IRB Number
21-011
Degree
B. S.; An honors thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Science.
Date
5-2022
Subject
Anxiety; COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-; Fear of missing out; Loneliness; Social media
Document Type
Theses
Extent
30 leaves
DCMI Type
Text
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Recommended Citation
Turner, Hannah, "The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the fear of missing out, anxiety, and loneliness" (2022). Honors Theses.
https://scholar.utc.edu/honors-theses/352
Department
Dept. of Psychology