Sense of loneliness among young people in the era of social networks

Abstract

Admission: The aim of the article was to determine whether activity on social networks can be related to the loneliness of young people. Methods: The research used a questionnaire of own questionnaire, containing questions with closed and open cafeteria and Polish adaptation De Jong Gierveld’s the scale of loneliness. There were examinated of 63% students in total, including 43 girls (68.3%) and 20 boys (31.7%), aged 12–13 (seventh grade). Results: The obtained results divided the studied youth into two groups. The first one were people who did not feel loneliness (69.8%), the second group (30.2%) – people experiencing loneliness to a significant and moderate degree. Differences in the compared groups occurred in relation to the amount of time spent on the portals during the day, the number of friends and the length of having an account on social networks. Conclusions: The obtained results show that young people pointing to satisfaction and satisfaction from social contacts (group A), declared at the same time activity on social networks over 2 hours a day. However, people who lacked contact with others, including lack of a friend (group B), declared using the portals for 1 hour a day. In the compared groups, there were also differences in the number of friends on the portals and in the length of the account. In the other analyzed areas, there were no differences in the compared groups.