Abstract
In our time, the constantly growing technology supported connectedness choices through communication paths such as social networking sites (i.e., Facebook) and cells’ oral and written communication, in addition to face-to-face contacts, the importance of children’s loneliness is accentuated, especially in the background of the extended and varied options for social interactions, and it is getting more and more difficult to stay unresponsive to their social distress. Childhood loneliness is indeed a painful experience, affecting current quality of life, and representing a developmental risk for future adjustment. It signals the existence of a failure in the valued areas of personal perception and interpersonal relationships. The formation and maintenance of positive close relationships can be characterized as one of the primary motivations for individuals. Additionally, social exclusion can threaten people at such a basic level that it impairs their sense of meaningful existence, by reducing their sense of purpose and the desire to meet objective goals and attain desired states of subjective fulfillment, reducing their perceptions of self-control and self-worth (Stillman et al., 2009).
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Margalit, M. (2010). Risks, Resilience, Empowerment, and Hope: Summary and Future Directions. In: Lonely Children and Adolescents. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6284-3_9
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