Association of Loneliness with Problematic Internet Use Among Adolescents Aged 10 to 16: a Longitudinal Study

This study aimed to examine the prospective association between loneliness and Problematic Internet Use (PIU) among adolescents aged 10 to 16. This study was conducted using data from the Japan Adolescent and Youth Longitudinal Cohort Study collected in 2022 and 2023. Participants were adolescents in grades 5–10 and their caregivers who were recruited from Japan. A total of 528 participants were eligible and provided consent to participate in both the 2022 and 2023 surveys (follow-up rate: 35.2%). A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to the participants. A modified Poisson regression model was applied to examine the association between loneliness and PIU, adjusting for potential confounders, including socioeconomic status, caregiver-child interaction, caregivers’ mental health status, and individual factors such as depressive symptoms and internet use at baseline. The PIU group accounted for 18.7% (n = 98) of the participants in the 2023 survey. After adjusting for these confounders, loneliness was found to be significantly associated with PIU (RR = 1.14; 95% CI [1.05–1.24]). Baseline PIU and depressive symptoms were also significantly associated with subsequent PIU. This study demonstrated that loneliness was prospectively associated with later PIU among adolescents aged 10 to 16. The findings suggest that loneliness may independently increase the risk of developing adolescent PIU. These findings also highlight the importance of school-based and mental health interventions focused on reducing loneliness to mitigate the risk of problematic internet use among adolescents. Further studies are warranted to investigate the causal mechanisms underlying this association.