Correlation between Facebook usage and loneliness and depression

Authors

Jasmine (Chi Man) Tang, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's UniversityFollow
Michael Livingston, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's UniversityFollow

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

6-16-2012

Disciplines

Personality and Social Contexts | Psychology

Abstract

Facebook has emerged into our society within the last couple years as a powerful social phenomenon. 11.5% of the world population are active users of Facebook while there is a serious lack of psychological theory relating to functions or effects of Facebook. Researchers began realizing the importance of investigating the usage of Facebook and how that might be related to different personality traits. However, not much research has been done on how Facebook use could be related to our social well-beings.

The current study aims to investigate how the use of Facebook influences loneliness and depression. The results showed that people with more Facebook friends tend to be less lonely. And the more time spent on Facebook predicts a higher level of loneliness and depression. Our results also revealed that there is no gender differences in total time spent on Facebook and number of Facebook friends. Further research on how Facebook users can be best benefited by Facebook without negatively influenced by it should be conducted. It is also hoped that research on other social networks will be carried out.

Comments

Poster presented June 16, 2012, at The Hong Kong Psychological Society Annual Conference, Hong Kong.

Recommended Citation

Tang, J.C.M., & Livingston, M.G. (2012, June 16). Correlation between Facebook usage and loneliness and depression. Poster presented at The Hong Kong Psychological Society Annual Conference. Hong Kong.