Zhao Yuxiang, Zhang Xuanhui, Song Xiaokang
[Purpose/significance]With the sweeping progress of technology and environment, there is an increasing tendency that users are more dependent on the adoption and use of mobile social media. Fear of missing out (FoMO) has been evolved from the previous individual behavior to the prevalent social phenomenon. The paper aims at investigating the existing studies on FoMO to better understand the cognitive mode and psychological factors on user's information behavior in mobile social media context.[Method/process]The paper conducts a systematical review on the prior FoMO related studies, incorporating the relevant research fields such as flow state, Internet/smart phone addiction, etc. Firstly, the paper endeavors to conceptualize the FoMO in mobile social media context, and then reviews the existing measurement scale on FoMO. Furthermore, the study uncovers the related influencing factors on FoMO and categories those factors into several dimensions. Lastly, it proposes several future directions on FoMO research from the theoretical and practical perspectives.[Result/conclusion]The findings show that the prior studies on FoMO have some limitations, especially on the conceptualization, contextualization, and multi-method selection. In addition, there are few, if any studies have been conducted to explore the FoMO in mobile social media context. Hence, it is believed that there is a large space for the researchers of information studies to investigate this topic in the future.