Closeness of Social Media Contacts and Loneliness Among US Adults: A Nationally Representative Study

Objectives: Loneliness is strongly linked to morbidity and mortality. While social media use has been associated with increased loneliness among adolescents, little research has examined this association among adults. It is also not clear whether it is better to communicate only with close personal friends or with people one has never met in person. We examined whether real-life closeness of social media contacts was associated with loneliness among a nationally representative sample of US adults. Methods: Participants included 1512 US adults aged 30 to 70 years who were surveyed in July and August 2023. We assessed loneliness using the National Institutes of Health Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System’s 4-item scale. Participants self-reported the proportion of their social media contacts whom they had “never met in person” (NMP) and whom they considered “close personal friends” (CPFs). We used logistic regression to examine associations between NMPs/CPFs and loneliness, controlling for 7 sociodemographic covariates and including survey weights to make results nationally representative. Results: In fully adjusted weighted multivariable models, participants in the highest quartile for NMPs had more than double the odds of loneliness (adjusted odds ratio = 2.33; 95% CI, 1.52-3.58) than those in the lowest quartile, and the association between NMPs and loneliness was linear ( P < .001). However, we found no significant association between CPFs and loneliness ( P = .93). Conclusion: While having more social media interactions with relative strangers was linked to increased loneliness, having more social media contacts who were CPFs was not linked to reduced loneliness. Future research should examine temporal associations and reasons for these findings. It may be useful for interventions to focus on reducing interactions with NMPs.