Loneliness Online: Social media interaction decreased loneliness in young adults during recommended social isolation.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic and periods of recommended social isolation has led to a rise in questions regarding the role of Social media as a mean of limiting feelings of loneliness. Loneliness is described as a disparity between an individual’s desired social relations and their present relations and while social media supports in building social connections, there is limited understanding of loneliness in relation to social media use, especially in the Middle East. Taking these contexts into consideration, the current study hypothesized that greater social media addiction, increased passive browsing, decreased interaction such as posting and tagging friends, and broadcasting such as status updates and going live would significantly increase loneliness in young adults during the pandemic in the UAE. In order to test this, data was collected online from 177 young adults in the UAE during recommended social isolation, and was analysed using hierarchical regression. Results indicated that only social media interaction significantly decreased feelings of loneliness amongst the participants. Browsing, broadcasting, and addiction however did not significantly impact levels of loneliness in young adults during recommended social isolation, which contradicts the majority of the past findings. The findings show that interactions with others on social media facilitate much needed connections, especially during a health emergency and recommended isolation.