Young consumers who shop online and have FOMO (fear of missing out) tend to feel lower levels of social, psychological and financial well-being, a new study finds – but there's one important caveat.
Researchers found that having a stronger attachment to a social media influencer is linked to younger consumers having improved feelings of well-being in those areas.
The findings show a complex dynamic for young people who follow the latest trends in fashion as they shop online and develop one-sided relationships with influencers who they turn to for shopping advice.
"Our findings are among the first to show the negative role that FOMO has on young consumers as they look to keep up with what's fashionable," said Abbey Bartosiak, who led the research while earning a PhD in consumer sciences at The Ohio State University.
"But it also shows that feeling a strong connection to a social media influencer who may help them decide what to buy can be related to their feelings of well-being."
The study was published recently in the journal PLOS One .
FOMO is normally seen as a fear of missing out on events and parties that your friends are attending, but this study shows another side of the phenomenon – fear of missing out on the latest fashion trends.
"Our study shows that this kind of FOMO is a real thing, and that it is linked to people's well-being," said Cäzilia Loibl , co-author of the study and professor and chair of consumer sciences at Ohio State .
The study involved a sample of 863 U.S. adults between 18 and 40 years old who participated online. All of them used social media and said they followed a social media influencer.
An influencer is someone who has become famous through social media and not through traditional celebrity means, like being a movie star or professional athlete. These influencers often have partnerships with companies to endorse their products or services.
This new form of marketing has grown quickly, and the number of firms using influence marketing almost doubled from 4,000 in 2019 to 7,300 in 2021, with Instagram being the preferred channel, according to the Influencer Marketing Hub .
Because of the stunning growth of influencer marketing, the researchers wanted to see how it is connected to consumer behavior in terms of FOMO and well-being.
"A key reason for the success of social media influencer marketing is that followers feel they connect to the influencer like a friend," Bartosiak said.
In this study, participants completed measures of how much FOMO they experienced and how attached they felt to the influencers they followed. In addition, they rated their experiences of shopping on social media, such as how often they bought items recommended by influencers. Finally, they rated their social, psychological and financial well-being.
The researchers expected that people with higher levels of FOMO would feel less well-being in all three areas, judging from findings in other studies, which is exactly what they found.
"If you feel that you're missing out on events or trends that your friends are involved in, it is not surprising that your well-being will be hurt," Loibl said.
But researchers also expected that those who reported stronger attachments to influencers could reverse that trend. That, again, is what they found for the two areas of social and psychological well-being.
"This may be one reason why social media influencers are so popular," Bartosiak said.
"If you feel connected to this influencer and her lifestyle, you might feel that the products you buy based on her recommendations make your life better. And that is linked to well-being."
However, there was one surprise for the researchers. They hypothesized that those with stronger attachments to influencers would have a more negative sense of financial well-being. The thought was that people would buy more things on the advice of the influencer – possibly things they didn't need or couldn't afford – and that could be linked to higher levels of financial regret.
But that's not what they found. Even financial well-being was higher for those with stronger attachments to social media influencers.
The researchers emphasized that they didn't have objective financial data on participants, and the financial well-being measure was based just on their self-reports.
"We don't know why people felt better about their financial well-being. It is something we are exploring in another study," Loibl said.
Bartosiak said the study findings show why consumers are attracted to social media influencers, but it is still not clear the impact is all positive.
"Influencers can provide a sense of connection that benefits consumers in terms of their feelings of well-being, but there are still concerns about overconsumption and what this might do to people in the long run," she said.
"There's still more to learn about what this is doing to people."
The study was co-authored by Jung Eun Lee, an associate professor of consumer and design sciences at Auburn University.
