The Association of Internet Use with Subjective Well-Being: An Empirical Study Based on CGSS 2017

Abstract

With the rapid development of mobile Internet technology, the Internet has taken on an indispensable role in everyday life. There is a continuous debate regarding the relationship between internet use and subjective well-being. In contrast to observing whether one has access to the Internet, this paper focuses on Internet usages such as the frequency of use, range of social interaction, and network centrality. Based on the Chinese nationwide data collected in 2017, the results of the ordinary least squares regression model demonstrate that Internet use has a significant positive association with subjective well-being. In addition, by conducting heterogeneity tests, this study also discovers that Internet usage has different effects on different age groups; middle-aged people benefit from a higher frequency of Internet use and a large-scale network; the youth and the old adults benefit from their organizing communication groups.