Social dynamics and loneliness in eSports: reframing the relationship in competitive gaming / Raja Al-Imran Hakim Raja Nor Azlan ... [et al.].

Loneliness is an internal discomfort caused by insufficient interpersonal interactions [1] that significantly impacts mental health and quality of life [2]. Despite eSports’ growing popularity, limited research explores the psychological factors influencing participation, particularly loneliness [3]. This study examines the relationship between loneliness and participation factors in EA Sports FC™ Mobile, addressing knowledge gaps on player psychology and motivation. 80 EA Sports FC Mobile users participated in the GGKL v3 on 9th-10th November 2024 and MVP Series on 21 December 2024 events were the study's target respondents. A questionnaire that included demographic information, a 20-item measure of off-esport loneliness using UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell et al., 1978) [4] and 27 participation motives using C-MOGQ (Wu et al., 2016) [5] was used to gather data. Loneliness level was measured by the mean of the total score. For a 20-34 score, it means the level of loneliness is low, while 35-49, it will be a moderate level and 50-80 is a high level of loneliness. Spearman Correlation was used to examine the connection between loneliness and factor of involvement as the normality test highlighted the results as non-normal.