IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i21p13766-d950853.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Shared Destiny in the Digital Era: Sensation Seeking, Loneliness, and Excessive Internet Use among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in Mainland China

Author

Listed:
  • Heng Yang

    (School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
    Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland)

  • Jianbin Jin

    (School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

Abstract

With digital infrastructures becoming the foundation of modern life and a shared lifestyle, the internet has become a popular leisure tool for middle-aged and elderly individuals. However, inappropriate use of the internet can jeopardize their health and quality of life, and excessive internet use by middle-aged and older adults is a cause for concern. This study found that middle-aged and older adults are vulnerable to excessive internet use. One predictor of excessive use is loneliness, but its effect is relatively limited. It is a mediating variable rather than the essential cause of excessive internet use by middle-aged and older adults. The effect of sensation seeking is a strong predictor of middle-aged and older adults’ excessive internet use, which means they have a strong desire to use the internet to satisfy their emotional needs, thus, resulting in excessive internet use. The social nature of digital infrastructure in a relational framework and the impact of the internet on different populations are likely more complex than we imagine and have the potential to cause many unintended effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Heng Yang & Jianbin Jin, 2022. "Shared Destiny in the Digital Era: Sensation Seeking, Loneliness, and Excessive Internet Use among Middle-Aged and Older Adults in Mainland China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-17, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:21:p:13766-:d:950853
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/13766/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/21/13766/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shechory Bitton, Mally & Cohen Medina, Hagit, 2015. "Problematic internet use and sensation seeking: Differences between teens who live at home and in residential care," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 35-40.
    2. Chun Yang & Daniel W. L. Lai & Yi Sun & Chun-Yin Ma & Anson Kai Chun Chau, 2022. "Mobile Application Use and Loneliness among Older Adults in the Digital Age: Insights from a Survey in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(13), pages 1-22, June.
    3. Russell D. Ravert & M. Brent Donnellan, 2021. "Impulsivity and Sensation Seeking: Differing Associations with Psychological Well-Being," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1503-1515, August.
    4. Susan Leigh Star & Karen Ruhleder, 1996. "Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 7(1), pages 111-134, March.
    5. Galit Nimrod & Jan Warren-Findlow, 2020. "Aging Well in the Digital Age: Technology in Processes of Selective Optimization with Compensation," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 75(9), pages 2008-2017.
    6. Yang Yang & Dan Zeng & Fan Yang, 2022. "Internet Use and Subjective Well-Being of the Elderly: An Analysis of the Mediating Effect Based on Social Capital," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-20, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Tilson & Kalle Lyytinen & Carsten Sørensen, 2010. "Research Commentary ---Digital Infrastructures: The Missing IS Research Agenda," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 21(4), pages 748-759, December.
    2. Hagit Cohen-Medina & Sarah Ben-David, 2016. "A Comparative Study on Self-Monitoring: an Updated Perspective on Normative Versus At-risk Youth," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 9(4), pages 873-888, December.
    3. Emmanuelle Vaast & Geoff Walsham, 2009. "Trans-Situated Learning: Supporting a Network of Practice with an Information Infrastructure," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(4), pages 547-564, December.
    4. Pradeep Racherla & Munir Mandviwalla, 2013. "Moving from Access to Use of the Information Infrastructure: A Multilevel Sociotechnical Framework," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 24(3), pages 709-730, September.
    5. Cass, Noel & Schwanen, Tim & Shove, Elizabeth, 2018. "Infrastructures, intersections and societal transformations," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 160-167.
    6. Sotiria Grek, 2022. "The education Sustainable Development Goal and the generative power of failing metrics [The Learning Metrics Task Force 2.0: Taking the Global Dialogues on Measuring Learning to the Country Level]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 41(4), pages 445-457.
    7. Ashley Carse & Joshua A Lewis, 2017. "Toward a political ecology of infrastructure standards: Or, how to think about ships, waterways, sediment, and communities together," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 9-28, January.
    8. Ulf Stein & Benedict Bueb & Gabrielle Bouleau & Gaële Rouillé-Kielo, 2023. "Making Urban Water Management Tangible for the Public by Means of Digital Solutions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-14, January.
    9. Berg, Sebastian & Thiel, Thorsten, 2019. "Widerstand und die Formierung von Ordnung in der digitalen Konstellation," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 10(1), pages 67-86.
    10. Ellen Balka & Sandra Whitehouse & Shannon T. Coates & Dug Andrusiek, 2012. "Ski hill injuries and ghost charts: Socio-technical issues in achieving e-Health interoperability across jurisdictions," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    11. Malcolm Wolski & Joanna Richardson, 2014. "A Model for Institutional Infrastructure to Support Digital Scholarship," Publications, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-17, September.
    12. Young, Meg & Katell, Michael & Krafft, P. M., 2019. "Municipal Surveillance Regulation and Algorithmic Accountability," SocArXiv zx2sw, Center for Open Science.
    13. Teubner, Alexander & Stockhinger, Jan, 2020. "IT/IS strategy research and digitalization: An extensive literature review," ERCIS Working Papers 34, University of Münster, European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS).
    14. Canay Özden-Schilling, 2016. "The infrastructure of markets: From electric power to electronic data," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 68-80, January.
    15. Scott, Susan V. & Zachariadis, Markos, 2012. "Origins and development of SWIFT, 1973–2009," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 46490, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Khalid Alzadjali & Amany Elbanna, 0. "Smart Institutional Intervention in the Adoption of Digital Infrastructure: The Case of Government Cloud Computing in Oman," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-16.
    17. Marlee Tichenor & Sally E Merry & Sotiria Grek & Justyna Bandola-Gill, 2022. "Global public policy in a quantified world: Sustainable Development Goals as epistemic infrastructures [The ethics of a formula: Calculating a financial-humanitarian price for water]," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 41(4), pages 431-444.
    18. Wei Chen & Jia Miao, 2023. "Does the Internet Moderate the Neighborhood Effect? Internet Use, Neighborhoods, and Mental Health among Older Adults in Shanghai," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-14, January.
    19. Dietmar Offenhuber, 2019. "The platform and the bricoleur—Improvisation and smart city initiatives in Indonesia," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(8), pages 1565-1580, October.
    20. Mathew, Ashwin J., 2016. "The myth of the decentralised internet," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 5(3), pages 1-16.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:21:p:13766-:d:950853. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.