Yuxin Lin, Xin Wang
Background: International students are especially vulnerable to loneliness because geographic displacement can disrupt social ties, reduce access to familiar cultural environments, and increase acculturative stress. Although active online participation has been linked to better psychosocial outcomes, less is known about whether a specific live-stream behavior, live interactive singing, is associated with lower loneliness among international students. Methods: A cross-sectional online survey was conducted with 685 international students who used native-language live-streaming platforms and had participated in at least four live interactive singing session in the past month. Self-report measures assessed live interactive singing behavior, social connection, perceived social support, fear of missing out, and loneliness. A moderated serial mediation model was tested while controlling for gender, academic level, and offline social-life quality. Results: Live interactive singing behavior was negatively associated with loneliness. This association was statistically consistent with indirect pathways through social connection and perceived social support, including a significant serial indirect pathway through both mediators. Fear of missing out moderated the associations between live interactive singing behavior and the two mediators, as well as its direct association with loneliness, such that the beneficial pattern was weaker at higher levels of fear of missing out. Conclusion: Live interactive singing was associated with lower loneliness among international students. Because the design is cross-sectional, the observed relationships are correlational, and causal direction cannot be inferred. Theoretically, this study sharpens research on loneliness by showing the importance of specifying concrete forms of online participation and situating them within broader relational and motivational frameworks. Practically, it highlights the relevance of culturally familiar interactive digital environments as supportive spaces for international students and provides a foundation for future student-support and platform-based efforts to address loneliness in cross-cultural contexts.