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How to Report FoMO Scale Results in Your Methods Section

The Fear of Missing Out Scale is a short, single-factor measure. Here's the reliability line and a sample paragraph for your write-up.

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Folio Team

August 4, 2026 2 min read

The Fear of Missing Out Scale (FoMO; Przybylski, Murayama, DeHaan, & Gladwell, 2013) is a 10-item, single-factor measure โ€” one of the more straightforward write-ups in this series, because there's no subscale structure to explain.

The reliability line

Items are rated on a 5-point scale from not at all true of me to extremely true of me. In the original validation, the scale showed good internal consistency: ฮฑ = .87. Because it's unidimensional, you only need to report one alpha โ€” just be clear whether it's the original figure or your own sample's.

A sample paragraph

Fear of missing out was measured using the FoMO Scale (Przybylski et al., 2013), a 10-item unidimensional measure of the apprehension that others may be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent, rated on a 5-point scale from not at all true of me to extremely true of me. The scale demonstrated good internal consistency in the original validation (ฮฑ = .87).

If you're computing your own composite score, state your scoring method explicitly (mean vs. sum of the 10 items) โ€” the original paper doesn't fix one convention, so your reader shouldn't have to guess which you used.

Reference: Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841โ€“1848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014

Folio's FoMO scale page has the full item wording and citation pre-formatted โ€” handy for confirming your item set matches the original before you write up the method.

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