A Measure For The Study Of Online Friendship And Its Relationship With Face-to-face Friendship And Loneliness Among College Students

With the increase in the breadth and depth of communication through internetamong college students, online friendship has become an important component offriendships, the same as face-to-face friendship; the influence of online friendship isincreasing. Exploring the characteristics of online friendship and its relationship withface-to-face friendship helps to determine the function of online friendship, so to giveappropriate guidance. Loneliness among college students can affect individualinterpersonal relationships, study and life in all aspects, discovering the relationship ofloneliness and online/face-to-face friendship is important and has practical significanceto enrich and improve the mental the theory of health and to guide the work.This study adapted questionnaires and used a longitudinal design to examine thebasic characteristics of students’ online communicative action, and to explore therelationship between the quality of online/face-to-face friendship and loneliness.Firstly, when get each grade through college network communication behaviorquestionnaire specific circumstances and classification; while the quality ofrelationships with peers questionnaire and UCLA loneliness questionnaire measuringthe corresponding level of friendship quality and loneliness, and studied them in thepopulation school variables, the differences between the network communicationbehavior;3month later, measure the quality of their friendship and loneliness again, toget the inter model and analyze the impact between the three models. Correlationanalysis by1329all grades Students initial test results and188freshman students retestresults, analysis of variance, regression analysis, structural model validation, theresults show:1. Four types of friendships in college are present:80%of the students haveprimarily face-to-face-based relationships, more than50%had exclusively internetbased friendship；2. Online friendship quality is in the middle level. The help and support dimensionhas the highest score, followed by the partnership relationship、 intimacy and peer conflicts dimonsions.3. Face-to-face friendship quality is at a medium level. The partnership relationshipdimension has the highest score, followed by help and support、 intimacy and peerconflicts dimonsions.4. There was a significant positive correlation between online friendship qualityand face-to-face friendship quality, all dimensions have both low to moderate positivecorrelation; freshman score higher in face-to-face friendship quality and maintain thistrend over the time.5．The loneliness level of overall students is in lower middle level. For freshmen,their loneliness level increased significantly after3months.6. College students loneliness level has a significant negative correlation with bothonline friendship quality and face-to-face friendship quality. Face-to-face friendshipquality plays as a complete intermediary effect between loneliness and online friendshipquality,loneliness affects online friendship through face-to-face friendship.7. Loneliness level of freshman who just enter university will reduce face-to-facefriendship quality at present and three months later, while it also increase the lonelinesslevel three months later, which in turn ultimately affects online friendship quality3months later.