2025/12/07 by Di Wang, Zhaohua Deng, Guorui Fan
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Technology Use by Older Adults #Impact of Technology on Adolescents #Digital Mental Health Interventions
paper · doi:10.1080/0144929x.2025.2598607
With the rapid development of digital technology, the factors influencing the depressive symptoms of the elderly have undergone new changes. Most existing studies treat social support as a singular concept, without distinguishing between online and offline forms of support. This study aims to investigate the relationship between two distinct sources of offline social support – family and friends – and Internet use, as well as their combined impact on depressive symptoms among the elderly. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating role of educational level on the mediating variables. This study formulates research hypotheses based on social support theory and socioemotional selectivity theory. For the empirical analysis, data from the 2018 and 2020 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) were employed. The CHARLS data were collected using a stratified multi-stage PPS sampling method. After data screening, a total of 9,250 participants were included, corresponding to 14,373 valid samples. Methodologically, panel negative binomial regression models and moderated mediation analysis were applied to systematically test the proposed hypotheses. The results show that Internet use positively influences the reduction of depressive symptoms among the elderly, with offline social support from family and friends serving as partial mediators. Moreover, educational level weakens the indirect effect of Internet use on depressive symptoms through offline social support from friends. This study extends the theoretical understanding of depressive symptoms among the elderly from the perspective of social support and offers new insights for both theory and practice.