Loneliness, Internet addiction and gender (Case Study: University Students of Golestan Province Center)

Loneliness is a perceived failure and weakness in interpersonal relationships, leading to dissatisfaction with social relationships. Gender plays a decisive role in the level of loneliness and addiction to the Internet and has been used in media-related studies. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to explain the relationship between feelings of loneliness and levels of Internet addiction with emphasis on the role of gender.

This is a cross-sectional study using descriptive survey method.The statistical population of the study consisted of 16532 students of universities in central Golestan province. In order to determine the sample size, 385 people were selected based on Krejcie and Morgan table. Appropriate stratified random sampling was used to select the samples.

Research findings indicate that Internet addiction is more prevalent among female students than male students, while male students are more likely to be addicted than female students. 

Also controlling for gender variables showed that there was a negative and significant relationship between loneliness and internet addiction among both male a