Abstract: Loneliness and mobile phone addiction are common phenomena in our daily life, seriously affecting our physical and mental health. Recently, numerous empirical studies have discussed the relationship between these two constructs based on different theoretical perspectives. However, the reported effect sizes of this relationship based on cross-sectional designs are far from consistent. Therefore, this meta-analysis was conducted to explore the strength and moderators of the relationship between loneliness and mobile phone addiction. One hundred and thirty-one studies consisting of 134 independent samples involving 73, 543 participants were identified and a random-effects model was selected to conduct this meta-analysis. The results of the funnel plot and Egger’s intercept illustrated no publication bias. Furthermore, the results of the main-effect test indicated that there was a moderate and positive correlation between loneliness and mobile phone addiction (r = 0.25, 95% CI = [0.23, 0.27]). Additionally, the moderation analyses revealed that the strength of the relationship was moderated by the type of participants, but not by gender and measurement tools of loneliness and mobile phone addiction. The results supported the compensatory Internet use theory and the deficient self-regulation model. Longitudinal or experimental studies are needed in the future to further explore the direction of the relationship between loneliness and mobile phone addiction.

Key words: loneliness, mobile phone addiction, mobile phone dependency, problematic mobile phone use, meta-analysis