Social Media Interaction Motivation Scale: Development and Relations with Fear of Missing Out, Phubbing, Social Media Disorder, Gender and Time Spent

Social media, which is one of the platforms where online activities are most intensely observed, has become an indispensable element of daily life as it enables individuals to interact. The aim of this three-phase study was to develop a measure of social media interaction motivation (SMIM) among those who use at least one of these platforms, to test its validity and reliability, and then to examine its relationship with some variables that were found to be similar. SMIM increases unhealthy cyber behaviors such as fear of missing out (FoMO) and phubbing. Comparing the measures across the three studies, the means of SMD, FoMO, and phubbing do not differ by gender, except for the higher SMIMS scores of females in Study 2. However, these means increase dramatically with time spent on social media. Considering some limitations of the study, we present our suggestions for future studies.