Internet Use and Subjective Well-Being among Urban Elderly Women: A Quantitative Study from Chengdu, China

Abstract

The accelerated digitalisation of everyday life in urban China has reshaped how older citizens sustain social ties, yet older women remain among the least connected groups, and the cultural consequences of their digital participation are poorly understood. Drawing on the competing social compensation and displacement hypotheses, this study examines whether and how internet use is associated with the subjective well-being of urban elderly women. Cross-sectional questionnaire data were collected from 412 women aged 60 years and above residing in urban districts of Chengdu, using a multistage sampling design. Internet use intensity, perceived online social support, loneliness, life satisfaction and psychological well-being were measured with established scales. Hierarchical regression showed that internet use intensity was positively associated with subjective well-being after adjusting for demographic and health covariates. Bootstrap mediation analysis indicated that this association operated through two relational mechanisms, namely greater perceived online social support and reduced loneliness. A small but statistically significant negative association between internet use and the frequency of face-to-face contact provided limited evidence of displacement, yet the compensatory pathways outweighed it, yielding a net positive relationship with well-being. The hypothesised buffering of the internet for the most socially isolated women was not supported. The findings position digital participation as a modest instrument of social inclusion for ageing women, while cautioning against treating online contact as a substitute for embodied community life. Implications for digital inclusion policy in ageing Chinese cities are discussed.