Relationship between Loneliness, Social Anxiety and Social Media Use

Loneliness and anxiety are emotions experienced by an increasing number of the population. One possible contributing factor to explain the rising prevalence of these emotional disorders is social media use. The purpose of this research was to conduct a correlational design study (N=92) on a wide age range and diverse population and identify any correlation between these emotional disorders and social media use. This study also aims to investigate if social media use can be predicted by the contributions of loneliness and social anxiety and whether age holds any significance in predicting social media use. Using data collected from three self-report questionnaires - UCLA loneliness scale, SAQ-30 social anxiety scale and the SONTUS social media use scale, correlational and hierarchical regression analyses found while social anxiety and social media use share a small positive relationship, loneliness and social media use do not correlate. The first regression analysis in this cross-sectional study found social anxiety and loneliness added no statistical significance to the prediction of social media use, with any contribution from loneliness due in large part to its relationship with social anxiety. In our last regression model, age was found to be the only significant predictor of social media use. Findings highlight need for future causal research into the psychological impact social media use has on our well-being