| According to China’s census data,the birth rate has continued to decline in recent years,and the age structure of the population has shown dramatic changes.By 2050,it is estimated that the Chinese old people account for more than 30 per cent of the whole population,and the issues of ageing and ageing health need urgent attention.On the other hand,today’s society is in the era of new media,with the emergence and development of intelligent technologies and 5G technologies,and the Internet has become the "operating system" that structures our society.When these two contexts overlap,the ageing society is challenged by the new media.On the one hand,the Internet is gradually penetrating the lives of the elderly,but on the other hand,the elderly also have difficulties in "integrating Internet technology",thus creating a digital divide for the silver-haired.In this context,it is important to study how the Internet affects the multidimensional health of older people,so as to provide an important reference for better bridging the digital divide and promoting healthy ageing.Based on this,this paper uses the 2017 and 2018 CGSS mixed cross-sectional data to examine empirically what effects internet use has on older people’s multidimensional health,based on theories such as the active activity theory,the re-socialisation theory of older people,and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory.Firstly,this paper uses Ordinal Logit models to examine the effect of Internet use and intensity of use on multidimensional health in older people.The instrumental variables approach is used to address the endogeneity issue,and the substitution variables approach,the OLS model test and the propensity score matching method(PSM)are used to conduct robustness tests.Secondly,this paper uses a mediating effects model to examine the effects of the Internet on multidimensional health in old age along each of the three pathways of action:social interaction,information access and leisure and entertainment.Considering that differences in individual characteristics may have different effects on the use of the Internet in old age,this paper examines the heterogeneous effects of Internet use on multidimensional health in old age by grouping older people with different identity characteristics,such as gender,urban/rural,education level and generation.This paper has the following findings: Firstly,Internet use and its intensity of use have a positive effect on the multidimensional health of older people,with those who use the Internet being 1.59,1.299,1.499,1.612 and 1.811 times more likely to have higher levels of physical health,mental health,self-rated health,cognitive function and overall health than those who do not use the Internet respectively.For every 1-unit increase in the intensity of Internet use,the probability of improving one or more levels of physical health,mental health,self-rated health,cognitive function and general health increases by 20%,12.1%,13.1%,15.6% and 22.1% respectively;secondly,Internet use can have an impact on older people’s multidimensional health through three pathways: social interaction,information access and leisure and entertainment.Secondly,Internet use can affect older people’s multidimensional health through three pathways:social interaction,information acquisition and leisure,each of which has a different effect,with the access to information pathway having the highest effect,the social interaction pathway having the second highest effect and the leisure and entertainment pathway having the lowest effect.Finally,based on the results of the empirical study,this paper proposes corresponding countermeasures from the government,market,family and individual levels on how to solve the dilemma of Internet technology integration for the elderly and how the Internet can better promote multidimensional health of the elderly,so as to provide an important reference for better bridging the digital divide of silver hair and promoting healthy ageing. |
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