Abstract
The present study investigated the role of social web application use in the association between loneliness and pathological Internet use. A sample of university students (n = 445) completed an online survey of their loneliness and Internet use, including an assessment of pathological Internet use level. Based on existing theory and empirical findings, loneliness was expected to be indirectly associated with pathological Internet use through social-compensatory Internet use motives. The strength of this indirect effect was hypothesized to be moderated by levels of social web application use. Results pointed to the specificity of social-compensatory use motives in mediating loneliness effects on pathological Internet use, while the size of these effects was moderated by quantity of social web application use. Findings suggest that lonely people with higher levels of social web activity show a stronger social-compensatory use orientation, which translates to higher levels of pathological Internet use. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed and several suggestions for future studies are made.
Highlights
IntroductionLoneliness can be defined as the disquieting experience of a perceived internal distance between oneself and others and is conceptually linked to the desire for and eventual attempts to reconnect with others (Schwab, 1997)
Keywords Loneliness · Moderated mediation · Pathological Internet use · Social web application use Loneliness can be defined as the disquieting experience of a perceived internal distance between oneself and others and is conceptually linked to the desire for and eventual attempts to reconnect with others (Schwab, 1997)
This could be confirmed during the moderated mediation analysis conducted, as indicators of “fun & relaxation” as well as “social & personal unfolding” motives were associated with pathological Internet use
Summary
Loneliness can be defined as the disquieting experience of a perceived internal distance between oneself and others and is conceptually linked to the desire for and eventual attempts to reconnect with others (Schwab, 1997). Loneliness and underlying social contact problems are highly prevalent in emerging adult as well as university student samples (Qualter et al, 2015). When associated with a loss of control of the use behavior and resultant problems regarding time management as well as with social problems and craving for the use of the Internet, such excessive use has been discussed as part of a syndrome of pathological Internet use (Kraut et al, 1998; Tran et al, 2017b). The syndrome has been shown to be more prevalent in adolescent and emerging adult samples, including students (Durkee et al, 2012; Kuss et al, 2014; Zhang et al, 2018), with an estimated prevalence rate of approximately 4.4% in European adolescents (Durkee et al, 2012). There is no universally accepted definition of the syndrome and different diagnostic criteria have been used to establish a syndromic diagnosis (Musetti et al, 2016), certainly contributing to highly divergent prevalence estimates (for Europe: 1 to 21%, see Duong et al, 2020) and large numbers of identified correlates in the literature (Duong et al, 2020; Kuss et al, 2014)
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