Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Dec 28, 2022
Date Accepted: Apr 28, 2023
Remote Communication and Loneliness During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Although the rapidly expanding use of remote communication technologies may partly mitigate the negative psychosocial consequences of interpersonal contact restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is unclear whether and what types of remote communication are effective in mitigating loneliness.
Objective:
This study aims to investigate the association between remote communication and loneliness when face-to-face meetings with others were strongly prohibited and whether this association varied across types of communication tools, age, and gender.
Methods:
This study includes two populations that had stopped meeting with family members living apart or friends from cross-sectional data from the Japan COVID-19 and Society Internet Survey (JACSIS) conducted from August to September 2020. We employed a modified Poisson regression model to investigate the association between the use of technology-based remote communication (voice calling, text messaging, and/or video calling) and loneliness assessed using the University of California, Los Angeles Loneliness scale (version3) and Short Form 3-item (UCLA-LS3-SF3).
Results:
Our study included two study populations that stopped meeting with 1) family members living apart (n=4483) or 2) friends (n=6783) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Individuals with remote communication, particularly with friends, were less likely to experience loneliness during the pandemic (family, adjusted prevalence ratio (aPR)= 0.89 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.74–1.08]; friends, aPR= 0.82 [95% CI, 0.73-0.91]). Across the three types of communication tools, text messaging with friends was associated with a low prevalence of loneliness regardless of age, whereas voice calling with family members living apart or friends was associated with a low prevalence of loneliness only among participants aged over 65 years. The association was found regardless of the type of remote communication tool among men, while it was found only for text messaging with friends among women.
Conclusions:
Promoting support for using effective remote communication methods, including text messaging, may reduce loneliness when face-to-face contact is restricted. Future investigations are needed to clarify whether such approaches are required to be tailored by age and gender.
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