FOMO and Social Media Engagement by Millennial employees
It has been mentioned earlier that Millennials expect an abundance of information, fast communication and a platform to share their information. In this case, social media platforms are best suited to satisfy the needs of this generation. They can utilize social media websites/applications to retrieve information, communicate efficiently with their peers and share their own experiences. Social media is used extensively in organizations nowadays, therefore, it is crucial to address whether the use of this tool would result in an improvement or deterioration of performance by the employees. It appears that the use of social media can be advantageous as well as detrimental to work performance depending on dispositional and situational factors.
Studies conducted in the past have shown a positive relationship between social media engagement and FOMO (Przybylski et al., 2013). According to one study, young adolescents have reported a feeling of disconnectedness and missing out without access to online communication, which encouraged them to keep their phones within reach at night (Vorderer et al., 2016). This suggested that individuals have a desire to stay connected to the internet consistently, even at bedtime (Scott & Woods, 2016). The devices are used in order to have access to social media applications. Therefore, when individuals experience FOMO when they’re out of touch with their peers, they are likely to engage in social media activities.