Loneliness and Nomophobia among University Students: Moderating Role of Locus of Control

Abstract

The present study was designed for investigating the relationship between loneliness, nomophobia and locus of control in university students. Convenient sampling technique was used to obtain data from a sample (N=300) from university students in which included (n=80) males and (n=220) females. The data was collected from universities of Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Pakistan with an age range of 18-30 years. The quantitative data was collected by using validated and standardized psychological measures including The Loneliness Scale (Russell (1996), The Nomophobia Questionnaire (Yildirim & Correa, 2015) and The Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966). The results of the statistical analysis of Pearson product moment correlation performed using SPSS version 27 showed that strong positive correlations were observed among subscales of nomophobia i.e., unable to access information, giving up convenience, unable to communicate, and loss of connection, indicating significant interdependence among nomophobia dimensions. Additionally, loneliness was moderately correlated with ICT and GUC, highlighting its association with nomophobia dimensions while locus of control showed weaker correlations with other variables, suggesting a more nuanced or indirect moderating role in this context. Loneliness is significantly positively associated with the dependent variable indicating that higher loneliness predicts greater levels of the outcome variable. Similarly, LOC shows a significant positive association suggesting that higher levels of LOC are linked to increases in the outcome. Overall, the study has provided a piece of empirical evidence for understanding the nomophobia and present relevant implications for the relationships between loneliness and psychological strength-related variable in university students.