Understanding the impacts of Internet use on senior Citizens’ social participation in China: Evidence from longitudinal panel data

Abstract

Scholars have appealed to build a digitally inclusive society to include senior citizens. However, conclusions on the impacts of Internet use on senior citizens’ social participation are divided. In order to address the above issue, this study addresses two questions: 1) how Internet use is related to senior citizens’ social participation; and 2) what the specific impacts of Internet use are on different subgroups’ social participation. We aim to understand the specific impacts of Internet use on senior citizens’ social participation meanwhile explore the reasons causing the abovementioned inconsistence in prior studies. We ran different panel regression models to address these questions based on a dataset drawn from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. Our empirical results indicate that seniors who are Internet users have higher social participation than those who do not use the Internet even after controlling out other influencing factors; however, frequent Internet use leads to less social participation among senior citizens. For senior citizens with higher cognitive functioning, both using Internet or not and the frequency of Internet use lead to more social participation. Both using Internet or not and the frequency of Internet use cause senior citizens with pensions to engage in fewer social activities. For female senior citizens, frequent Internet use leads to lower social participation. These findings suggest that government and communities should improve digital infrastructures and offer senior citizens more opportunities to access the Internet; meanwhile, local communities, social workers, and family members should direct senior citizens to use the Internet in a reasonable manner.