Guangzhe Frank Yuan,1 Caimeng Liu,1 Wei Shi,2 Xu Ding3 

1School of Education Science, Leshan Normal University, Leshan, People’s Republic of China; 2Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction (IDMR), Sichuan University, Chengdu, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Nursing, Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Taian, People’s Republic of China

Correspondence: Xu Ding, School of Nursing, Shandong First Medical University & Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Taian, 271000, People’s Republic of China, Email dingxu331@163.com

Purpose: Previous research has documented that problematic smartphone use (PSU) is associated with various psychological symptoms among adolescents, but temporal ordering and underlying mechanisms remain unclear.
Patients and Methods: This three-wave longitudinal study examined bidirectional relationships among depressive and anxious symptoms, fear of missing out (FOMO), and PSU in a sample of 402 Chinese adolescents (49.6% girls; Mage = 12.33, SD = 0.52) assessed at six-month intervals (ie, T1, T2, and T3).
Results: The random-intercept cross-lagged panel modelling (RI-CLPM) results indicated a bidirectional relationship between FOMO and PSU, with each predicting subsequent increases in the other. PSU predicted increases in depressive symptoms over time (βs =0.19 − 0.21, ps < 0.001), but not vice versa (βs =0.05 − 0.06, ps > 0.05). Anxious symptoms predicted increased FOMO over time (βs =0.12 − 0.13, ps < 0.01), while FOMO did not predict anxious symptoms (βs =0.05 and.05, ps > 0.05). FOMO at T2 mediated the linkage between depressive/anxious symptoms at T1 and PSU at T3.
Conclusion: These findings identify FOMO as a critical mediating mechanism linking psychological symptoms to problematic digital behaviors. Interventions targeting FOMO may help disrupt these maladaptive patterns and prevent escalation of both PSU and psychological symptoms among adolescents.

Keywords: problematic smartphone use, fear of missing out, depressive and anxious symptoms, adolescents