Digital Commons Network^™

Loneliness During Mass Social Distancing: An Exploratory Qualitative Study Of Loneliness In College Students During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Madeline Williams

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a unique environment to study loneliness in college students. Loneliness has a deeply rooted history in psychology and sociology where both attempt to explain it as either a lack of physical contact, a discrepancy in one’s actual quality or type of relationships and the quality or type of sought-after relationships, or as an emotional reaction to social factors. One way that psychologists have attempted to quantify loneliness is with the UCLA loneliness scale. Previous research has focused on the conceptualization and definition of loneliness, social stress theory regarding studying mental health, and the strength of …