Feeling of loneliness and social new damages in high school students

Introduction: Loneliness as a predictor of children and adolescents adjustment problems has been focused on by mental health researchers. Increasing virtual relationship instead of family and social relationship especially among adolescents has led to loneliness and other problems. Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between loneliness and associated factors of internet and cell phone usage in secondary high school students in Rasht city in 2014. Methods: This analytic cross-sectional survey was conducted on 581 students of second cycle high schools in Rasht city who were selected by cluster sampling. For collecting data a researcher made questionnaire for demographic and associated factors of internet and cell phone usage and University of California at Los Angles Loneliness Scale loneliness questionnaire were applied. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis, Chi-square, Spearman correlation and multiple logistic regressions). Results: Findings indicated that 16.9% of the samples have gained more score than the mean of loneliness tools. Most students used the internet for downloading music, movies or books (68%) and participation in social networking websites such as face book (%36/1), and cell phone for texting ( 31.7%) and taking picture/ film (25.8%). There was a significant correlation between age (p=0.022), number of close friends (p=0.0001), field of study (p=0.002), father's education (p=0.003), mother`s education (p=0.006), visiting the scientific websites and doing homework (p=0.015), spending leisure time (p=0.0001) and downloading music, movies or books (p=0.029) and loneliness. Based on regression analysis, variables mother’s education (having high school diploma) (OR=0.470, p=0.014). How to spend free time (OR= 2.391, P=0.0004) and the number of close friends (OR= 0.949, p=0.01) and Presence in social network such as Face book (OR=1.952, p=0.016) remained in the final model as significant predictors of loneliness. Conclusion: Because of the direct and significant correlation between loneliness and some personal and social characteristics and factors associated with internet and cell phone usage among students, it is necessary to focus more attention on the new communication technologies and to plan appropriate educational programs to prevent the adverse consequences of problematic use of them on the adolescents' mental health.