Daily social media use, social ties, and emotional well-being in later life

Abstract

Older American adults are increasingly utilizing communication technologies, but research has seldom explored older adults’ daily social media use and its interface with other “offline” social ties. To explore a complementary and/or compensatory function of social media in later life, this study employed data from the Daily Experiences and Well-Being Study (2016–2017) to examine associations between daily social media use, daily social encounters, social network structure, and daily mood. Community-dwelling older adults ( N = 310; Mage = 73.96) reported on their overall social network structure (diversity in types of social ties and size of network), their daily social encounters in-person and by phone, social media use, and emotional well-being for 5 to 6 days. Multilevel models revealed that daily social media use was associated with daily mood in the context of daily social encounters and the size of the social network. Individuals reported less negative mood on days with more social media use and more in-person encounters. More daily social media use was associated with more positive mood for individuals with a relatively small social network but not for their counterparts with larger social networks. Findings suggest that social media is a distinct form of social resource in later life that may complement the emotional benefits of daily social encounters and compensate for the age-related reduction in social network size. Future research should consider how socially isolated older adults might use computer-mediated communication such as social media to foster a sense of social connection.

Characterizing traveling Instagrammers: an exploration of socio-psychological concepts, travel typologies and posting motives

“…Studies show that individualistic countries such as Germany have different social media usage patterns than collectivist cultures (Sheldon et al , 2017). In addition, studies such as those by Rollero et al (2019) or Kim and Fingerman (2022) show that age moderates social media use. Therefore, characteristics such as age, gender and culture should not be ignored in the future, and moderation analyses could provide important insights in this regard.…”

Need to belong, daily social engagement, and transient loneliness in late life

“…Finally, the use of technology-mediated communications such as text and social media has steadily increased among older adults (MacDonald et al, 2021; Pew Research Center, 2021), and were found to provide distinct social resources in late life (Kim & Fingerman, 2022). Currently, only 45% of older adults aged 65+ use social media, compared with 73% for those aged 50–64 years, and 81% for those aged 30–49 years (Faverio, 2022).…”

Intergenerational and digital solidarity: Associations with depressive symptoms during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…The current analysis addresses how digital communication fits with traditional dimensions of intergenerational solidarity as perceived by older and younger generations, and how it might compensate for the harmful consequences of restricted face‐to‐face interactions in older parent and adult child pairs during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Even prior to the COVID‐19 outbreak, digital communication as a distinct form of interaction was found to benefit older adults' mental health and improve their ability to maintain connections with geographically distant family members (Kim & Fingerman, 2022; Zhang et al, 2021). In addition, one study found that young adults' digital communication with parents was positively associated with family satisfaction (Stein et al, 2016).…”