No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Psychology of Loneliness in Digital Age Among the Argentinean Population
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on well-being and mental health are a concern worldwide. This article is based on two longitudinal studies that investigated the role of social media use in loneliness and psychological distress before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study 1 utilized nationally representative 3-point longitudinal data (n = 735) collected in 2017–2020 on the Finnish population. Study 2 utilized 5-point longitudinal data (n = 840) collected in 2019–2021 representing the Finnish working population. We analyzed the data using multilevel mixed-effects regression analysis. A longitudinal analysis of Study 1 showed that perceived loneliness did not increase among the Finnish population during the COVID-19 pandemic. Stronger involvement in social media identity bubbles predicted lower loneliness during the pandemic. Study 2 results showed that since the outbreak of the pandemic, psychological distress has increased among lonely individuals but not among the general population. Involvement in social media identity bubbles predicted generally lower psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it did not buffer against higher psychological distress among lonely individuals. The findings suggest that perceived loneliness is a risk factor for prolonged negative mental health effects of the pandemic. Social media identity bubbles can offer meaningful social resources during times of social distancing but cannot protect against higher psychological distress among those who perceive themselves as often lonely.
Social distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic changed social interaction for many and increased the risk of loneliness in the general population. Social media use has been ambiguously related to loneliness, and associations may differ by age. The study aimed to examine loneliness and its association with social media use within different age groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia during April/May 2020, and 3,810 participants aged 18 years or above were recruited. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine associations between social media use and social and emotional loneliness within separate age groups. Emotional loneliness was higher among young adults and among those who used social media several times daily. Adjusting by sociodemographic variables, using more types of social media was associated with lower social loneliness among the oldest participants, and with higher emotional loneliness among the youngest participants. Among middle-aged participants, using social media more frequently was associated with lower social loneliness. We found that the associations between social media use and loneliness varied by age. Older people’s engagement on social media may be a resource to reduce loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic. We observed higher levels of loneliness among high-frequent social media users of younger age.
Background
In an age of increasing loneliness and associated poor mental health, research uncovering the extent to which social connection can be achieved digitally is paramount. This is particularly important among men, who experience unique barriers to achieving meaningful social connections due to masculine norms including independence and self-reliance. Loneliness is a known determinant of both psychological distress and greater time on social media, however relationships among these constructs are yet to be studied specifically among men.
Aims
This study aimed to examine a novel mediation model to uncover whether time on social media mediates the association between loneliness and psychological distress, alongside a moderating effect of age.
Method
A community sample of 979 men of mean age 36.0 years (range = 18–78, SD = 13.11) took part via an online survey involving measures of study constructs.
Results
Results highlighted a novel moderated mediation effect: for younger men only, loneliness predicts psychological distress via time spent on social media.
Conclusion
Men experiencing loneliness appear to turn to social media in attempt at digital connection, however for younger men in particular, often this fails to ameliorate links between loneliness and psychological distress. Implications for public health messaging, clinical work with men and future interventional studies are discussed.
Background: In Lebanon, it is already established that mental disorders are prevalent among the population. Lebanese people are active users of social media platforms. To date, no study has previously explored the relationship between mental health and social media use disorder in Lebanon. The present study aims to learn more about the link between social media use disorder and loneliness among Lebanese people.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out between January and December 2018. It enrolled 456 residents of the community randomly selected from Lebanon's governorates in a proportionate rate.
Results: The results showed that 107 (23.7%) participants were classified as having social media use disorder. The results of a stepwise linear regression, taking the loneliness score as the dependent variable, showed that female gender compared to males (Beta=0.42), having a secondary level of education compared to illiteracy (Beta=0.65), higher social media use disorder (Beta=0.03) and higher insomnia (Beta=0.02) and alexithymia (Beta=0.02) were significantly associated with higher loneliness.
Conclusion: The present study was able to contribute to the literature and showed the association between social media use disorder and loneliness. These findings can benefit psychologists and public health practitioners in their future prevention and intervention plans.
Emerging adults are heavy users of smartphones and social media, a behavioral trend that may disrupt the experience of solitude and decrease the corresponding benefits for mood regulation and identity development. This study used the experience sampling method to assess the associations between solitude, social media use, and psychological adjustment in the everyday lives of 69 college students and to investigate whether individual differences in extraversion and the preference for solitude influenced these associations. Cluster analyses showed that high-functioning introverts with high identity development and low loneliness were more likely than extraverts and low-functioning introverts to spend time truly alone without using social media, and they exhibited the lowest social media use in general. Analyses using covariance pattern modeling indicated that, contrary to expectations, participants were happier when on their devices, particularly when they were alone but preferred to be with people. These findings illustrate both the appeals and pitfalls of social media and device use. Although our moods may improve from using social media during solitude, chronic device use when alone may inhibit identity development and other psychosocial developmental tasks.
The move to university can be difficult for students- a transition often characterised by a risk of loneliness and poor mental health. Previous work highlights the important role social media can play in this transition. We report findings from a large-scale survey of 510 first year undergraduates across the UK, identifying factors that predict student loneliness, and exploring their social media use. Higher levels of social capital, induction satisfaction, and sense of community are significantly associated with lower levels of loneliness. Conversely, those reporting a more ‘liminal self’- the desire to edit and reinvent yourself online - experience greater loneliness- with an indirect relationship between online social information seeking and loneliness, through social capital. We surmise that being ‘true to yourself’ online is important when starting university, and that social media can be a useful tool in facilitating offline relationships and maintaining ties to old friends.
The purpose of this study is to explore the how user perceptions of social media might influence effects on psychological well-being. Social Presence Theory was used to examine Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and texting. Undergraduate students (N = 352) were given a survey to assess how frequently they use social media, how intimate they think each platform is, and how lonely and happy they are. Perceived intimacy was found to mediate the ameliorating effects of social media use on loneliness and happiness. Frequency of social media use initially predicted decreased loneliness and increased happiness, but once perceived intimacy was factored in, it was a more significant predictor than frequency of use. The more one uses social media, the more he or she is likely to believe those platforms are a good way to connect with others (perceived intimacy), which then increases the likelihood that happiness and social connection result from their usage. Results and implications are discussed.
In nationally representative samples of U.S. adolescents (age: 13–18) and entering college students, 1976–2017 (N = 8.2 million), iGen adolescents in the 2010s (vs. previous generations) spent less time on in-person (face-to-face) social interaction with peers, including getting together or socializing with friends, going to parties, going out, dating, going to movies, and riding in cars for fun. College-bound high school seniors in 2016 (vs. the late 1980s) spent an hour less a day engaging in in-person social interaction, despite declines in paid work and little change in homework or extracurricular activity time. The results suggest that time displacement occurs at the cohort level, with in-person social interaction declining as digital media use increased, but not at the individual level, where in-person social interaction and social media use are positively correlated. Adolescents’ feelings of loneliness increased sharply after 2011. Adolescents low in in-person social interaction and high in social media use reported the most loneliness.
Young adults’ use of social media has soared in recent years, and the many hours that young adults now spend in front of screens replace time spent in face-to-face interactions. Previous studies indicate that the unique features of social media offer advantages to adolescents compared with other communications media. Today, the fact that young adults spend a significant part of their social lives spent on social media and forums triggers an important question that interests educators and therapists about whether presence in the digital world offers an adequate sense of social belonging and mitigates the feeling of loneliness that young adults occasionally experience. Using self-report questionnaires, this study examined associations between reported Facebook usage patterns and loneliness among Ariel University students. The hypotheses of this study, predicting an association between social media usage and loneliness, were not supported, in contrast to findings of previous studies.
Introduction: Given the breadth of correlational research linking social media
use to worse well-being, we undertook an experimental study to investigate the
potential causal role that social media plays in this relationship. Method: After a
week of baseline monitoring, 143 undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania
were randomly assigned to either limit Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat
use to 10 minutes, per platform, per day, or to use social media as usual for three
weeks. Results: The limited use group showed significant reductions in loneliness
and depression over three weeks compared to the control group. Both groups
showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out over baseline,
suggesting a benefit of increased self-monitoring. Discussion: Our findings strongly
suggest that limiting social media use to approximately 30 minutes per day may
lead to significant improvement in well-being.
With the rise of online social networking, social relationships are increasingly developed and maintained in a digital domain. Drawing conclusions about the impact of the digital world on loneliness is difficult because there are contradictory findings, and cross-sectional studies dominate the literature, making causation difficult to establish. In this review, we present our theoretical model and propose that there is a bidirectional and dynamic relationship between loneliness and social Internet use. When the Internet is used as a way station on the route to enhancing existing relationships and forging new social connections, it is a useful tool for reducing loneliness. But when social technologies are used to escape the social world and withdraw from the "social pain" of interaction, feelings of loneliness are increased. We propose that loneliness is also a determinant of how people interact with the digital world. Lonely people express a preference for using the Internet for social interaction and are more likely to use the Internet in a way that displaces time spent in offline social activities. This suggests that lonely people may need support with their social Internet use so that they employ it in a way that enhances existing friendships and/or to forge new ones.
Ever since the emergence of social networking sites (SNSs), it has remained a question without a conclusive answer whether SNSs make people more or less lonely. To achieve a better understanding, researchers need to move beyond studying overall SNS usage. In addition, it is necessary to attend to personal attributes as potential moderators. Given that SNSs provide rich opportunities for social comparison, one highly relevant personality trait would be social comparison orientation (SCO), and yet this personal attribute has been understudied in social media research. Drawing on literature of psychosocial implications of social media use and SCO, this study explored associations between loneliness and various Instagram activities and the role of SCO in this context. A total of 208 undergraduate students attending a U.S. mid-southern university completed a self-report survey (Mage = 19.43, SD = 1.35; 78 percent female; 57 percent White). Findings showed that Instagram interaction and Instagram browsing were both related to lower loneliness, whereas Instagram broadcasting was associated with higher loneliness. SCO moderated the relationship between Instagram use and loneliness such that Instagram interaction was related to lower loneliness only for low SCO users. The results revealed implications for healthy SNS use and the importance of including personality traits and specific SNS use patterns to disentangle the role of SNS use in psychological well-being.
Objectives: The rapidly shifting landscape of social media technology presents challenges to researchers and clinicians attempting to understand the impact of such technology on individuals’ psychosocial development. In this paper, we provide a historical perspective on research exploring the relationship between social media use and loneliness and belonging among adolescents and young adults.
Method: Rather than attempting an exhaustive review of literature in this area, we provide a narrative review on the evolution of social media technology over the past 20 years and its impact on socialization experiences of adolescents and young adults.
Results: Our narrative review, based on three prominent theoretical models in the field, reveals somewhat divergent findings, which may, to a large extent, reflect the remarkable evolution over the past few years in how youths use communication media technology. In this review, we consider individual, societal, and cultural factors that may explain preferences for various forms of online communication and related social outcomes such as belonging and loneliness.
Conclusions: Rather than asking whether social media involvement leads to feelings of loneliness and isolation for youth or opens a new frontier for connectedness and belonging, a more useful question is under what circumstances and for whom do these outcomes occur. Social media technology can be both a deterrent and a boost to youths’ sense of social well-being, depending on the nature of its use. We provide some cautions and guidelines for utilizing social media to promote psychological well-being among youth.
Introduction: As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and shelter-at-home have become necessary for public health and safety in the United States. This period of social isolation may be a risk factor for mental health problems, particularly among young adults for whom rates of loneliness are already high. Young adults also engage in more social media use than other age groups, a form of socialization associated with adverse effects on mental health, including loneliness and depression.
Methods: The current study examined potential mediating roles of social media use and social support seeking on the relationship between age and loneliness symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants included 1,674 adults who completed an online survey regarding depressive symptoms, loneliness, coping strategies, and changes to their daily lives as a result of the pandemic.
Results: Results indicated that young adults were lonelier than older adults during the pandemic, showed a greater increase in social media use, and lower social support seeking. Higher increases in social media use and lower social support seeking mediated the relationship between age group and loneliness.
Discussion: Findings are discussed in context of prior research and potential effects of stress and isolation during the pandemic. Clinical implications and suggestions for intervention are elaborated.
We describe the Cacioppo Evolutionary Theory of Loneliness (ETL) and its manifestations in contemporary society. The early conceptualizations of loneliness were as an individual difference characterizing a relatively small subset of the population. The ETL characterizes loneliness as not simply addressing an individual difference, but also as addressing the effects of loneliness on people generally. The progression motivated by the ETL to animal models and comparative analyses broadens the focus further to periods long before hominids evolved. The premise underlying our ETL is that an organism's perception of being socially isolated (i.e., lonely) automatically signals an environment in which the likelihood is low of encountering social behaviors categorized in terms of evolutionary fitness as mutual benefit or altruism. As a result, the likelihood is high of the organism exhibiting behaviors categorized in terms of evolutionary fitness as selfish. This shift in the fitness consequences of behavior is posited to be evolutionarily old and to operate in humans in part through nonconscious processes. The ETL addresses the adaptive functions of loneliness that foster short-term survival but that in the modern world can have deleterious long-term consequences. In doing so, the ETL places the social level of organization front and center in scientific investigations of the human brain and behavior. The centrality of the social world highlighted by the ETL is not attributed to social construction but to social and biological processes, including evolutionary forces operating across social species long before humans walked the earth.
Loneliness matters: a theoretical review of prevalence in adulthood
- A Asghar
- N Iqbal
▪ Asghar, A., & Iqbal, N. (2019). Loneliness matters: a theoretical review of prevalence in adulthood. J Psychol, 7(1), 41-7.