There are 4.388 billion Internet users around the world, representing 57% of the world population, and 3.484 billion of them are active social media users (that is 45% of the world population) (Kemp 2019). Extended Internet and social media access has had a tremendous impact on contemporary society, penetrating almost every aspect of life and creating new business and economic models. Much of ones daily activities require being active online, from answering work emails to e-learning, shopping, booking medical appointments or online banking. Every morning before 9 a.m. most people would have already read about events around the globe, sent a message to a friend on Facebook, or spent £100 without even leaving the house. The democratisation of Internet access has fundamentally changed the way we communicate and collaborate and has led not only to an ‘information revolution’ but, more importantly, to a ‘relationship revolution’ (Schrage 2001 in Jones and Hafner 2012, p. 7), opening up new opportunities to socialise, collaborate and interact with people that were inaccessible before. However, it is believed that ‘when our relationships are mediated through technology sometimes they can make us feel closer, and sometimes they can make us feel more distant from each other’ (Jones and Hafner 2012, p. 7). Whilst social networking websites allow us to keep in touch with friends, more often than not this online connectedness does not transcend into real-life connectedness.
The advent of any new media generates a series of concerns and moral panics. Recently, research on digital technologies has shifted its focus from a long period of positivism and optimism that followed the rise of Internet and social media to a time of digital pessimism dominated by gloomy predictions and negative assumptions associated with the excessive use of personal digital technologies and social media by young people. Almost every aspect of our digitally mediated lives is now considered a potential threat to our general well-being. The exacerbation of the negative effects of Internet use has gradually led to the perpetuation of various moral panics surrounding the impact of Internet and social media use on health and well-being. The negative effects of social media use always make the headlines and have become the subject of constant dispute between professionals, journalists, teachers and medical experts. As no one is immune to the media proliferation of various moral panics, often people’s high levels of fatalistic belief about social media use and its repercussions on face-to-face communication and social interaction prevails over academically informed reports. While it is demonstrated that left unchallenged social media can be detrimental to users health and mental well-being, this over-simplistic approach almost ignores the benefits of using the Internet and social media and the new opportunities for collaboration and participation, new business and economic models and new jobs it has generated. Indeed, social media has brought more people together from around the world than anything else but its popularity has been somewhat shadowed by legitimate and illegitimate claims that its use can lead to various health problems, inactivity, depression or loneliness. Even if the advantages greatly outweigh the disadvantages, public opinion remains divided between the positive and negative aspects of excessive Internet and social media use.
Up-to-date academic literature on the social repercussions of Internet use is dominated by a dualistic approach and is fragmented by arguments pro and against. While some advise against excessive Internet use (e.g. Nie 2001), others praise its beneficial effects on social capital (Ellison et al. 2007; Steinfield et al. 2008), social support (LaRose et al. 2001), well-being (Valkenburg and Peter 2007) and loneliness (Fokkema and Knipscheer 2007). It is also true that after a series of studies that blame the Internet and social media for all sorts of evils, we are now seeing a new turn in research from normative studies to a new positivist wave of empirical studies that are more balanced and are trying to find innovative ways to use social networking sites (SNSs) as a potential tool to cope with loneliness (Şar et al. 2012; Blazun et al. 2012) or to decrease loneliness (e.g. Pittman and Reich 2016; Fokkema and Knipscheer 2007) and build quality social relationships online (Martin and Schumacher 2003).
Studies have yet to determine whether the newfound social connectivity is affecting young people’s mental health and general well-being as so far results have been inconclusive. Without attempting to belittle or decry the real threats posed by an increasingly active digital life, this volume advocates for finding a middle ground in the debates about the social media’s impact on social relationships. By avoiding falling into the trap of either technological dystopianism or technological utopianism, this volume aims to debunk myths related to the effect of social media and its extending use on young people and to put an end to the debate regarding whether or not SNS use is making young adults lonelier.
This edited collection of chapters is the result of an Early Researcher Award (ERAS) grant I was awarded in 2017. As I reviewed a voluminous body of literature on loneliness for that project, I found very limited qualitative research into loneliness, especially as regards groups of people outside the mainstream loneliness research. Although loneliness can be experienced at any age (Heinrich and Gullone 2006), researchers have predominantly focused on older/elderly people, who are no longer in employment or without a partner. With the exception of only a few studies (e.g. Cacioppo et al. 2006; Nicolaisen and Thorsen 2014; Luhmann and Hawkley 2016), research into loneliness consistently ignores exploring how young adults (18–24) experience loneliness, despite that according to a 2014 UK survey, 53% of young people felt depressed because of loneliness (AVIVA 2014), while the Jo Cox Commission (2017) reports that 43% of 17- to 25-year-olds feel lonely.
In this context, my intention was to put together a volume that does not limit the concept of loneliness by associating it with a specific age group and instead explores young people’s experience of loneliness in the context of the new emerging technologies. Hence, this volume proposes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of loneliness and aims to identify and bridge the gaps in academic research on loneliness, at the same time creating new research pathways. Some of the contributions included in this volume were presented at a conference on loneliness in the age of mobile and social media I organised in February 2018 at the University of Wolverhampton (see more at wlv.ac.uk/loneliness).
Overview
In an era of enhanced social interconnectivity, loneliness, isolation, anxiety and depress...