The relationship between loneliness and social networking site addiction among Chinese college students: the roles of fear of missing out and the imaginary audience

Objective: This study employed a three-wave longitudinal design to investigate whether fear of missing out (FoMO) mediates the relationship between loneliness and social networking site (SNS) addiction, and whether this indirect pathway is moderated by the imaginary audience (IA). Methods: A total of 1,337 Chinese college students (M_age = 19.86 years, SD = 1.79; 670 females) completed validated Chinese versions of measures assessing loneliness, FoMO, IA, and SNS addiction across three waves at six-month intervals. Regression-based mediation and moderation analyses were conducted using SPSS 26.0. Bootstrapping with 5,000 resamples was applied to test indirect effects, and simple slope analyses were performed for significant interactions. Results: < 0.001). Contrary to expectations, the positive association was stronger among low-IA individuals. Conclusion: Interventions should target loneliness and FoMO while considering individual differences in IA.