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Facebook may have more than one billion users, but despite so many 'connected' people, the social network is full of lonely hearts, a new study suggests.

Researchers analysed a collection of studies to conclude that a connection between Facebook and loneliness exists.

They said the link is because the feeling of loneliness brings users in search of friendship to Facebook, rather than the social network making people feel isolated.

Researchers analysed a collection of studies to conclude that a connection between Facebook and loneliness exists. They said the link is because the feeling of loneliness brings users in search of friendship to Facebook, (illustrated with a stock image) rather than the social network making people feel isolated

Hayeon Song, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) focused on Facebook because of its broad appeal. The social network accounts for 54 per cent of global users' time.

Many pieces of research have sought to investigate the link between Facebook and loneliness as well as whether interacting with people online harms face-to-face relationships, or enables shy people to connect with others virtually in a meaningful way that they might not manage offline. This is known as the 'internet paradox'.

Her team reviewed studies published so far on the topic and found that people have concluded that Facebook both causes and eases loneliness. 

Experts found the lonelier someone is, the longer they spend on Facebook. A stock image of a lonely man is pictured

Professor Song found that the lonelier someone is, the longer they spend on Facebook.

She suggests that this shows Facebook does not reduce people's sense of isolation.

However, the researchers did not find that Facebook causes loneliness – only that people use the social network in a bid to feel more connected.

'Compared to non-lonely people, lonely people spend more time on Facebook. Lonely individuals who are shy or have low social support may turn to Facebook to compensate for their lack of social skills and/or social networks in face-to-face settings,' she wrote in the study, published in the journal Computers in Human Behaviour.

'The interesting point of this study is that it both supports and corrects the original internet paradox study, which is one of the most influential studies in internet research,' and was produced by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

She continued: 'To the question of whether or not the internet increases psychological dysfunction such as loneliness, the internet paradox study suggested that Internet use has detrimental effects. Our study supports this in that Internet use is associated with loneliness.

'However, we found the previously suggested causal direction to be erroneous: lonely people spend more time on the internet rather than internet use making people lonely,' Professor Song said.

She said that more research is needed to investigate the findings further, including whether young people compensate for loneliness in the same way that older people do.