An Examination of Variables Affecting State of Loneliness in High School Students

Abstract

Loneliness is a process that always exists and will exist in the future for all human beings. In addition to life experiences such as death and separation, every individual meets with loneliness within the course of life. A lot of factors cause loneliness. In the context of this study, 434 students who study at High School were interviewed and a questionnaire was applied. UCLA Loneliness Scale was used as the data collecting tool. In the study, loneliness of students is revealed concerning socio-demographical characteristics, social support and school social work. If necessary to summarize basic findings of the research; as to gender, males are more lonely than girls; as to education level of mother, students who have university graduated mothers have less level of loneliness than others; as to education level of father, students who have university graduated fathers have less level of loneliness than others; as to number of siblings, the more number of siblings the more state of loneliness, the more income the more state of loneliness, students who fail in a class feel more loneliness than others. Besides as living a long time in urban places, students who have been living a long time in urban places have less level of loneliness than others. To summarize the results in terms of the social support viewpoint, a similar data pattern is identified enclosing all the social support dimensions. Analyzing the sub-dimensions one by one, students with emotional social support have lower mean score of loneliness compared to students with no emotional social support. Similarly, students with informative social support have lower mean score of loneliness compared to students with no informative social support. In terms of tangible social support, students with physical/monetary social support are found to have lower mean score of loneliness scale when compared to the students with no such kind of support. Regarding the instrumental social support, students with this kind of support have lower mean score than the students lacking this kind of support. Students who have assured/reliant social support are found to have lower mean score compared to the students who do not have assured/reliant social support. Finally, students with any kind of social support are found to have lower mean score of the loneliness scale when compared to the students who do not have any kind of social support. In all of the social support sub-dimensions, group mean differences on the loneliness scale were analyzed through t-test and all of the results were found to be statistically significant.