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Social Networking Site Use and Loneliness: A Meta-Analysis
Libing Zhang1,2, Chun Li3, Ting Zhou2,4
1Henan Normal University.
Abstract:
The popularity of social networking sites (SNSs) has drawn researchers' attention in recent years, and a large amount of efforts have been made to explore the association between SNS use and loneliness, however, they provided mixed results. This meta-analysis was conducted to confirm the relationship, based on 82 articles consisting of 90 independent samples with a total of 48,383 participants. A random-effects model was used to analyze main effects and revealed that SNS use and loneliness were weakly, yet significantly positively correlated (r = 0.052). The type of SNS use moderated the relationship. Specifically, abnormal and passive SNS use was significantly and positively correlated with loneliness; however, no significant differences were observed in the relationships between general and active use of SNSs and loneliness. In addition, the moderating effects of gender, age, and culture were not significant.
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