Always online, still alone: A qualitative study of technology-facilitated loneliness and mood symptoms among...

Digital technologies are deeply embedded in university students' daily lives and are increasingly recognized as relevant to their mental health. This qualitative study explored how students experience technology facilitated loneliness and mood symptoms within the context of everyday digital use at King Khalid University in Abha, Saudi Arabia. A phenomenological design was used to capture lived experiences. Twenty undergraduate students who reported daily non-academic smartphone use and feelings of loneliness and low mood participated in semi structured interviews conducted in Arabic or English. Data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Four interrelated themes were identified. Surrounded but unseen described how students felt emotionally invisible despite constant online contact, with thin connections and subtle digital exclusions contributing to loneliness and self-doubt. Technology as an emotional amplifier reflected the dual role of phones and platforms, offering distraction and connection while intensifying negative comparison, worry and rumination. Scrolling through the night highlighted how late night use disrupted sleep and academic routines, leading to fatigue, procrastination and declining confidence. Silenced digital distress and missed opportunities for support captured how students normalised technology related distress, rarely raised it with professionals, yet envisioned a more proactive and validating role for psychiatric mental health nurses and university services. Findings suggest that digital experiences are central to how students feel, function and seek help. Psychiatric mental health nurses could play a key role in assessing technology related distress, providing digital wellbeing psychoeducation and informing campus policies that address technology facilitated loneliness and mood symptoms.