Edmund Wong (50293672)

Goh Yu Lin (50293629)

Ho Jia Wea Shannon (50293658)
Angela Loh Wan-Yun (50293621)

The two issues that our team will be examining is the privacy issue as well as the ‘Fear of

Missing Out’ (FoMO) factor. Zenly is an app where it locates your friend wherever they are as

long as they enable their location to be detected. This poses a lot of concerns to parents when

children use the app as it might potentially threaten the safety of young users of the app.

16-year-old James Lee mentioned in an interview by TODAY that other than tracking real time

location of his friends, the app also shows the battery life which indicates whether his friend is

awake or not by looking at the rate the battery depletes.

In this day and age, something that affects young adults a lot, is the fear of missing out. It is a

form of anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may be occurring elsewhere and that the

individual is not involved in. It is often stimulated by social media posts like Instagram stories.

For example, while viewing through Instagram stories, you see a few of your friends posting

about a party that they are attending. Then you start to wonder what or who’s party are they at,

and maybe ask yourself why you aren’t invited along. This is an increasing concern as feelings

of insecurity and self-doubt along with misunderstandings could arise.

Annotated Bibliography:

1. Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out.

Przybylski, A., Murayama, K., Dehaan, C., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational,

emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. ​Computers in Human

Behavior,​ ​29(​ 4), 1841–1848.​ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014

This article aims to further understand the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) phenomenon.

The article starts off by analysing FoMO in a psychological needs perspective. According

to the Self-Determination Theory, effective self-regulation and psychological health are

based on the satisfaction of 3 basic psychological needs: competence, autonomy, and

relatedness. The authors then proceeds by using 3 studies.The first one was to gather data

from a variety of international participants to create a Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) scale.

Study 2 utilised a more national-level sample where they explored how demographic,

motivational and well-being factors relate to the phenomenon. Study 3 looked into the

behavioral and emotional correlates of FoMO in a group of young adults. Implications of

the FoMOs measure and for the future study of FoMO are discussed.

Some of their findings were that ​FoMO was associated with lower need satisfaction,

mood and life satisfaction. It was also robustly linked to higher levels of social media

engagement, and was associated with driving distractions and usage of social media

during lessons. Limitations and potential for future research, such as the temporal and
 contextual stability of FoMO and it’s position among a wider nomological web of

constructs.

2. Why Do People Experience the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO)? Exposing the Link

Between the Self and the FoMO Through Self-Construal

Dogan, V. (2019). Why Do People Experience the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO)?

Exposing the Link Between the Self and the FoMO Through Self-Construal. ​Journal of

Cross-Cultural Psychology​, ​50​(4), 524–538. doi: 10.1177/0022022119839145

The article gives a theoretical background on the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO)

phenomenon and proposes that individuals with interdependent self-construal are more

vulnerable to feeling FoMO. The author aimed to examine the phenomenon from the

perspectives of how people perceive themselves, linking self-concept and the FoMO

experience. It was hypothesized that people with interdependent self-construal evaluate

others around them as a part of themselves, thus would be more concerned with what

other individuals around them are doing. As FoMO emanates mainly from the rewarding

experience(s) that the individual is excluded from but others are experiencing, individuals

that are interdependent on their self-concept would be positively associated with the

FoMO. The first study collected data from people belonging to an individualistic culture

and collectivist culture, measured using a 7-point likert scale for participants to report

their level of agreement towards statements in a questionnaire. The second study used the

same measurement as the first study, except participants were randomly assigned to a

control or experimental group, where the latter were primed to adopt the interdependent
 self-construal by reading a descriptive paragraph containing pronouns (e.g. we, us, our)

before attempting the questionnaire.

Both studies provided convergent evidence that the interdependent self-construal

increases the likelihood of experiencing the FoMO and was positively associated with the

phenomenon. In addition, it was cross-culturally examined that despite living in

collectivist culture it does not make participants interdependent and discovered that

FoMO was a particular feeling that played a pivotal role in decision-making. Limitations

and future directions for the study would be to study FoMO using a behavioral approach

and whether FoMO is dependent on individuals’ actions to be self-centered or other

centered.

3. Location privacy and public metadata in social media platforms: attitudes,

behaviors and opinions

Furini, M., & Tamanini, V. (2014). Location privacy and public metadata in social media

platforms: attitudes, behaviors and opinions. ​Multimedia Tools And Applications​, ​74​(21),

9795-9825. doi: 10.1007/s11042-014-2151-7

This journal assesses the risk of sharing geographic locations on social media and the

potential privacy threats it exposes its users to. The study consists of two phases. The first

phase aims to understand user’s knowledge on location-aware scenario, while the second

phase is interested in discovering user’s attitude towards location-aware scenario after

disclosing how an application can easily extract sensitive data publicly available to locate

users on the map in real time. Results showed that people who demonstrated little
 knowledge in phase one are the most concerned about location-aware scenarios accessed

in phase two. This proves that many social media users are unaware or choose to ignore

the possible threats that come along while engaging the platform. Many of the research

participants felt ​angry, negative and discomfort​ upon learning the kind of privacy risk

they are exposing themselves to but it does not deter them from using the social media

platforms.

4. Measuring individuals’ concerns over collective privacy on social networking sites

Jia, H.​, & ​Xu, H.​ (2016). Measuring individuals’ concerns over collective privacy on

social networking sites. ​Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on

Cyberspace, 10​(1), article 4. ​http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CP2016-1-4

This article studies individuals’ concerns over collective privacy and the possible

measures that could be taken to mitigate this issue. This article also serves as a starting

point for theorizing privacy as a collective notion and for understanding online

information disclosure as a result of social interaction and group influence. There are

three dimensions of collective privacy concerns, namely, collective information access,

control and diffusion being testified. This is a prevalent issue as they realised that even

though individuals using social networking sites (SNSs) have control over their account

where they can modify their privacy setting to adjust the accessibility of their own

information sharing so as to meet their personal needs, they still have concerns. They

worry because the actual privacy setting will not always be consistent with their privacy
expectations. Therefore, individuals are sceptical about their personal information being

abused, accessed by strangers or unwanted audiences that can infiltrate into their personal

lives. Despite the proliferation of the research with an individualistic approach to

examining privacy concerns, conceptualization and measurement of individuals’

concerns over socially constructed, collectively managed private information is lacking.

Hence, with the proposed 3 dimensions, SNSs can use this models to classify user’s

privacy concerns appropriately so as to address and assure their concerns more

specifically. Thus, it will improve their SNSs design and structure to reduce the

uncertainty of information leakage as well as to allow individuals to carry on using SNSs

with a peace of mind.