| How to improve residents’ happiness is an important task for our government.Our government has pointed out that it is necessary to meet the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and make everyone have a sense of contentment and happiness.With the construction of internet infrastructure,mobile internet spreads rapidly in China,which has brought great convenience to residents and changed people’s lifestyles.Therefore,mobile internet use has an important impact on residents’ happiness.Our research studies whether the mobile internet use improves residents’ happiness and analyzes the mechanism.Our findings can provide reference for government and residents.Based on the data of China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)in 2018 and 2020,using the ordered probit model,we analyze the impact of mobile internet use on residents’ happiness and its mechanisms.The mechanisms contain five aspects:mental health,physical health,wage income,relative income and family relationships.In addition,we have further studied the impact of the time length of mobile internet use and family members’ mobile internet use on residents’ happiness.Our research has found that:First,mobile internet use can improve residents’ happiness.Mobile internet use has a positive impact on happiness by improving their mental health,physical health and wage income,and has a negative impact on peoples’ happiness by reducing their relative income and worsening family relationships.The mediating effect of mental health is larger than others,which is an important mechanism between mobile internet use and happiness.Second,the impact of mobile internet use on residents’ happiness is heterogeneous in different groups.Mobile internet use has a significant positive effect on happiness in loweducated group,low-income group and rural residents,while the effect on happiness in the high-educated group,high-income group and urban residents is not significant.Mobile internet use has a significant happiness-enhancing effect on groups with different levels of social trust,but the happiness-enhancing effect of groups with low social trust levels is higher than that of groups with high social trust levels.Third,there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between time length of mobile internet use and residents’ happiness.The mechanism analysis shows that:when the time spent on mobile internet is short,the increase of the using hours can improve residents’ happiness by improving their mental health,physical health and family relationships,and reduce residents’happiness by reducing their relative income;when the time spent on mobile internet is long,the increase of the using hours can reduce residents’ happiness by reducing their mental and physical health,relative income and worsening family relationships.Fourth,mobile internet use of household members(hereinafter referred to as household mobile internet use)has a significant positive impact on residents’ happiness.Then we divide the data into two groups according to whether the residents themselves use the mobile internet to analyze the difference.The results show that:for residents who do not use mobile internet,household mobile internet use can improve residents’ happiness by improving their mental and physical health,and reduce residents’ happiness by reducing their relative income;for residents who use mobile internet,household mobile internet use can improve their happiness by improving mental health,while the mediating effects of physical health and relative income are not significant.This means that when residents can obtain information by using mobile internet themselves,information spreading in the family will no longer influence their happiness;When the number of people using mobile internet in the family increases,residents can communicate with other family members more conveniently,which can improve residents’ mental health,and thus enhance their happiness. |
