The Relationship Between Loneliness and Problematic Internet Use Among Young Adults Who Are Social Media Users

Abstract

This research aimed to test relationship between loneliness with problematic internet use in young adults who are social media users. When the individual's expectations for relationships with others are not consistent with reality, the individual will experience loneliness. The internet is one of the ways to have a social interaction and reduce feelings of loneliness. Feeling comfortable using internet for social interaction is a characteristic of individuals with problematic internet use. This research is a quantitative research with correlation techniques. Participants in this research were 508 young adults aged 18-40 years consisting of 133 men and 375 women in Indonesia. This research uses the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 which was arranged by Reinaldo & Sokang (2016) and UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3 which was arranged by Fatriani (2019). Hypothesis test results using Pearson Correlation showed r (508) = 0.432, p = 0.000 < 0.05. These results indicate that there is a significant and positive relationship between loneliness with problematic internet use in young adults who are social media users.

Adaptation of the Indonesian version of the online cognition scale to measure problematic internet use

“…PIU is also widely associated with psychosocial well-being, where excessive and problematic internet use shows a negative influence on the individual's psychosocial and personality Casale et al (2016). In Indonesia, the study shows that PIU correlates with loneliness (Harlendea & Kartasasmita, 2021;Rini et al, 2020;Yashinta & Hurriyati, 2020), and there is a negative correlation between PIU and psychological well-being, meaning that the higher the PIU, the lower the subjective well-being (Syihab et al, 2020;Putri & Wahyudi, 2022). Excessive internet use also has a negative effect on development, damaging mental health and social functioning and causing addiction (Chao et al, 2020).…”