AccScience Publishing / HPR / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/HPR026040016
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Fear of missing out and adolescent sleep quality: A moderated mediation model

Zhongju Wen1,2,3† ,  Xingyao Li1,2† ,  Qian Gu1,2 ,  Yong Zhang1,2 ,  Chuanhua Gu1,2*
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1 Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Wuhan, Hubei , China
2 Key Laboratory of Human Development and Mental Health of Hubei Province, School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, Hubei , China
3 School of Physical Education, Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities, Duyun, Guizhou , China
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
HPR, 026040016 https://doi.org/10.36922/HPR026040016
Received: 19 January 2026 | Revised: 29 July 2026 | Accepted: 31 July 2026 | Published online: 4 November 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Influencing Factors of Adolescents' Online Behavior and Well-being)
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Background: Fear of missing out (FoMO) has been associated with poorer sleep among adolescents, but the psychological processes underlying this association remain unclear.

Objective: This study examined whether FoMO was indirectly associated with poorer sleep quality through emotion regulation difficulties and whether regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE) moderated this indirect association.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 412 seventh- and eighth-grade students from one junior middle school in Wuhan, China. Participants completed measures of FoMO, emotion regulation difficulties, RESE, and sleep quality. PROCESS Models 4 and 7 were used to test mediation and first-stage moderated mediation, controlling for gender and grade.

Results: Higher FoMO was associated with greater emotion regulation difficulties and poorer sleep quality. The standardized indirect association estimate for the pathway from FoMO to poorer sleep quality through emotion regulation difficulties was 0.15 (95% bootstrap confidence interval [CI] [0.09, 0.21]). RESE moderated the association between FoMO and emotion regulation difficulties (β = −0.12, p = 0.005), with the association becoming weaker at higher RESE levels. The index of moderated mediation was −0.036 (95% bootstrap CI [−0.065, −0.012]).

Conclusion: Emotion regulation difficulties may help explain the association between FoMO and poorer sleep quality among adolescents, whereas RESE may serve as a potential protective resource by weakening the association between FoMO and emotion regulation difficulties.

Keywords
Adolescents
Emotion regulation difficulties
Fear of missing out
Moderated mediation
Regulatory emotional self-efficacy
Sleep quality
Funding
This study was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. CCNU26ZZ136).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
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