Social Contact and Perceived Loneliness in College Students

Abstract

Absolute level of social contact, perceived loneliness, and perceived number of problems were measured for 90 male and 38 female college students. It was expected that loneliness but not social contact would be correlated with the number of problems reported and that there would be at best a low correlation between loneliness and social contact. These hypotheses were corroborated in the present study. Though low levels of social contact were not related to loneliness, the possibility that a decrease in level of social contact or the perceived quality of social contact would be related to loneliness was discussed.