The Relationship between Internet Use and Health among Older Adults in China: The Mediating Role of Social Capital

Zhu, Yong; Zhou, Yifan; Long, Cuihong; Yi, Chengzhi

doi:10.3390/healthcare9050559

Cited by 28 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“… 34 In addition, some studies summarized the mediating role of social capital between internet use and the mental health of older adults. 35 , 36 Several studies revealed that internet application capability, 37 internet accessibility, 38 income level, 39 social class, 40 family support, 41 and other factors could also affect the mental health of older adults when they used the internet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between Internet Use and Mental Health Among Older Adults in China: The Mediating Role of Physical Exercise

Zhang¹,

Zhang²

2021

RMHP

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Objective Affected by internet applications, mental health among older adults has become an important public health issue in China. This study aimed to use cross-sectional data to explore how internet use affects mental health among older adults in China, along with the moderating role of physical exercise in the above relationship. Methods This study employed data from the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) conducted in 2017. In addition, OLS regression was adopted to explore the impacts of internet use on the mental health of older adults in China. Results Results from the cross-sectional data model showed that internet use had a statistically significant and positive correlation with the mental health of older adults. The regression result of the full sample showed that the regression coefficient of the influence of internet use on the mental health of the elderly was 0.114, which was significant at the 1% level. Furthermore, this study used mediating analysis to explore the possible underlying mechanism by which internet use influenced mental health status through physical exercise. Physical exercise played a mediating role in the relationship between internet use and mental health; the ratio of the indirect effect to total effect mediated was 0.272. It is important to note that the effect size of the indirect effect through physical exercise was quite large. Conclusion Our findings suggested that internet use was significantly associated with better mental health status for older Chinese residents, mediated by higher physical exercise frequency, which was consistent with China’s recent efforts to promote health governance with the “Internet Plus Exercise” campaign. Consequently, the government must encourage the development of more internet applications suitable for the elderly to increase their exercise frequency and ultimately improve their mental health. These results also provided insights for clinical solutions.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relationship Between Internet Use and Mental Health Among Older Adults in China: The Mediating Role of Physical Exercise

Zhang¹,

Zhang²

2021

RMHP

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“…In fact, with the help of online platforms, older people could actively participate in social activities and strengthen their offline social participation by more convenient access to all kinds of information, which helped to reduce the risk of depression. In addition, Zhu et al [ 69 ] found that the structural social capital characterized by “interaction with friends” did not show a significant mediating effect. Lyu and Sun [ 40 ] used the “gift expenditure” of the past year to describe the structural social capital, which had a significant mediating effect on Internet use to improve self-rated health of older people, but the indirect effect accounted for only 2.45%.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A meta-analysis also showed that the proportion of Chinese older people with depressive symptoms were as high as 23.6% [ 33 ]. In this context, mental disorders such as geriatric depression not only seriously affected the life quality of older people, but also increased the financial and mental stress of their families, while inevitably adding to the medical burden and resource strain on the whole community [ 69 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although existing studies have analyzed the impact of Internet use on health, there were few empirical tests of the specific mechanisms by which Internet use improved health and reduced the risk of depression [ 14 , 40 , 69 ]. As a structural social capital, social participation may be an important intermediary variable for Internet use to reduce depression of older people.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A study on the impact of Internet use on depression among Chinese older people under the perspective of social participation

et al. 2022

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Purpose This study aimed to evaluate the role of social participation in the relationship between internet use and depressive symptoms among Chinese older adults and investigate how the internet use interact with social participation to reduce the risk of depressive symptoms. Methods Based on the survey from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in 2018, we identified 4645 subjects and used the Ordinary Least Square method (OLS) and Propensity Score Matching method (PSM) to identify the association between Internet use and depression of older people, and further test how social participation played a role in the relationship. Results The level of depression of older people was significantly reduced in those who using internet in China, and the effect was still robust under different identification methods. The mental health was improved when using internet because of the increase of social participation and social capital. Further, The positive effect was stronger especially in those who were female, living in rural areas, has low education attainments and were 70–79 years old. Conclusions The popularity of internet use has a positive effect on the depressive symptoms of Chinese older adults. Effective measures were encouraged to improve the friendliness of internet for older people and promote the popularization of the Internet and older group, achieving the spiritual well-being of them in the Internet society.

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“…This may be particularly important for older adults in later stages of the life course (Norstrand & Chan 2014;Nyqvist et al 2013) or in social isolation due to declining health and/or mobility (Siette et al 2021;Yiengprugsawan, Welsh & Kendig 2018). Moreover, social capital may help older adults with limited literacy and access to the Internet or social media stay connected to family and friends (Barbosa Neves et al 2018;Litchman & Edelman 2019;Zhu et al 2021).…”

Section: Background Social Capital and Ageing In Communitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Community-Engaged Research on Social Capital and Older Adults’ Health: Lessons Learned

et al. 2022

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Most adults in the United States prefer to age in their own homes and communities. However, many ageing-in-place models rely on expensive external services, negatively affecting access by lower socioeconomic status (SES) and other vulnerable groups. This article documents two pilot projects conducted by a community-academic partnership that examined associations between social capital, ageing in community, and health among older adults. The first project explored the association between social capital and health across community SES levels. The second project explored one type of social capital, timebanking, and its association with health. We highlight here our lessons learned from these community-engaged research (CER) projects: (1) Our partnership needed to improve our study design and data collection by enhancing our recruitment strategies, community site partnerships, survey instrument and data matching, and research team workload allocation issues. (2) We should have validated our instruments for use with older adults who had mild cognitive and visual impairments, acknowledged how community SES differences influenced our data collection, and included more research assistant support during our community meetings. (3) We would have benefited from protocol development for recording and responding to issues raised by participants. Our projects also led us to relational insights, such as reinforcing the need to foster clear communication across team members, involving community advisory boards earlier in the CER process, seeking network input on research strategies to meet older adults’ needs, and developing plans to sustain long-term relationships. We hope these lessons learned are useful to other community-engaged researchers.

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The Relationship between Internet Use and Health among Older Adults in China: The Mediating Role of Social Capital

Cited by 28 publications

References 39 publications

The Relationship Between Internet Use and Mental Health Among Older Adults in China: The Mediating Role of Physical Exercise

The Relationship Between Internet Use and Mental Health Among Older Adults in China: The Mediating Role of Physical Exercise

A study on the impact of Internet use on depression among Chinese older people under the perspective of social participation

Community-Engaged Research on Social Capital and Older Adults’ Health: Lessons Learned

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