Improving Social Inclusion for People with Physical Disabilities: The Roles of Mobile Social Networking Applications (MSNA) by Disability Support Organizations in China.

Hyeon-Cheol Kim,Zong-Yi Zhu

doi:10.3390/ijerph17072333

Abstract

Having friendships and interpersonal social connections is a normal and expected necessity of life that enhances an individual’s well-being. Digital platforms, such as mobile social network applications (MSNA), present a means for people with disabilities to integrate in society. This study combines intrinsic benefits (such as enjoyment experience and information) and extrinsic benefits (such as social networking) to explore the impact of these benefits on online friendships, and the influence of these online friendships on the perceived social connectedness and well-being of people with physical disabilities. The partial least squares methodology was used to conduct statistical analysis on survey data; the outputs were obtained through convergent analysis, discriminant analysis, and bootstrapping. The results showed that enjoyment experience and social network benefits significantly influence online friendships, which influence perceived social connectedness and well-being. In addition, the perceived social exclusion has a significant moderation effect. Our findings are expected to help local disability service organizations develop effective digital disability inclusion strategies to combat widespread social exclusion among people with disabilities.

Highlights

Having friendships and interpersonal social connections enhances an individual’s well-being but is a normal and expected necessity of life
Each item of factor loading is higher than the acceptable threshold of 0.7, the Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability (CR) of each construct is higher than the acceptable threshold of 0.7, and the average variance extracted (AVE) for each construct is higher than the acceptable threshold of 0.5
This study intended to demonstrate how the mobile social network applications (MSNA) helps in maintaining online friendships of physically disabled persons, which could improve their well-being

Summary

Introduction

Having friendships and interpersonal social connections enhances an individual’s well-being but is a normal and expected necessity of life. The issue of improving the well-being of people with disabilities has sustained attention from society and social welfare departments. Digital platforms, such as mobile social network applications (MSNA), present a means for people with disabilities to integrate into society, from which they can obtain information benefits and enjoyment benefits without movement [1]. They can receive social support from online social interactions with others [1]. As a previous study [2] argued, well-being could moderate the negative effects of a physical disability and enhance a sense of belonging, which would promote mental health

Objectives

Results

Conclusion