What do you do when you are lonely? Does (problematic) social media use make it worse or not?

*Disclaimer: Please note that parts of this English sci-fly were automatically translated.*

Do you ever feel lonely? What do you tend to do then?

It could be that you seek support or entertainment online. You might even find it easier to connect online than offline, especially if you feel lonely. You may then use social media so long and intensively that you experience negative physical/psychological effects from it. This is also known as problematic social media use. Conversely, if social media use is a substitute for offline contact, it can increase loneliness. Indeed, as you may have noticed, online contact is often more superficial than contact in the “real” world. Since the cause-and-effect relationship between loneliness and problematic social media use is unclear, recent research by Wu and colleagues (2024) has been conducted.   CORE

• More loneliness at one time causes an increase in problematic social media use at a later time. But vice versa, problematic social media use at one time, also causes an increase in loneliness at a later time.
• Thus, loneliness and problematic social media use predict each other over time in both directions.
• A faster increase in loneliness, causes a faster increase in problematic social media use and vice versa. So, both are mutually reinforcing.
• The results provide important insight for future psychological interventions and educational strategies. It is important to apply measures to reduce loneliness or problematic social media use to break the vicious cycle. It would be best to address both simultaneously.

  RESEARCH METHOD WHAT? This research studied how loneliness and problematic social media use are related over time among university students. In other words; does loneliness predict later problematic social media use, does social media use predict later loneliness, or does it go both ways? WHO? 877 Chinese university students. HOW? There were three rounds of measurements, in September 2022 (T1), March 2023 (T2) and September 2023 (T3). Questionnaires were used to request information on loneliness and problematic social media use. Two types of complex analyses were done, called cross-lagged panel model and latent growth curve model.   RESULTS

• The cross-lagged panel revealed the following:
  • Problematic social media use and loneliness remained fairly stable over time.
  • More loneliness at T1 predicted more problematic social media use at T2. More loneliness at T2 also predicted more problematic social media use at T3.
  • More problematic social media use on T1 predicted more loneliness on T2. And more problematic social media use on T2 predicted more loneliness on T3.
• The latent growth curve model revealed the following:
  • Students experience a slow increase in loneliness and problematic social media use during their time in college.
  • If students had more initial loneliness, they also had more initial problematic social media use, and vice versa.
  • Higher initial values of problematic social media use were related to faster increases in loneliness over time. And vice versa, higher initial values of loneliness were related to faster increases in problematic social media use over time.
  • If loneliness has faster increases over time, problematic social media use also increases faster. And conversely, if problematic social media use has a faster increase over time, loneliness use also increases faster.

Despite this study supporting possible cause-and-effect relationships between loneliness and problematic social media use, conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships should be treated with caution since it is not an experiment. The study was conducted in China, so whether the same is true in Western cultures remains to be seen.   This sci-fly was written by Aafke Swinkels (Radboud University) for RAD-blog, the blog on smoking, alcohol, drugs and diet.