Social Networks Use, Loneliness and Academic Performance among University Students

The world is extensively changed by Social Networks Sites (SNSs) on the Internet. A large number of children and adolescents in the world have access to the internet and are exposed to the internet at a very early age. Most of them use the Social Networks Sites with the purpose of exchanging academic activities and developing a social network all over the world. But the excessive internet usage can lead to negative outcomes such as poor school performance, depression and loneliness. According to these findings, the main aim of this research is to investigate whether internet addiction is related to academic performance and loneliness among the university students. The Emotional and Social Loneliness Scale, Scale for Social Networks and a personal information sheet were administered to a sample of 120 (61 female, 59 male) university students. The results indicated that internet addiction was positively associated with loneliness among students. At the same time we found a significant positive relationship between social networks and loneliness, but negative relationship between social networks and low academic performance. There was no correlation between social networks, loneliness and high academic performance. It has been concluded that internet addiction predicts loneliness among university students. [For the complete Volume 14, Number 1 proceedings, see ED568088.]