How Does Internet Use Affect Subjective Well-Being?

The rapid development of network technology is profoundly affecting human society.As a new technological revolution,the coming of the "Internet+" era has not only given rise to many new industries,but also promoted the change and development of traditional industries.For more than a decade,experts and scholars in various fields have been paying attention to the impact of the Internet on the formation of people’s values,the shaping of their mindset and their psychological development.Therefore,in the context of the Internet era,it is important to pay attention to the impact of the Internet on subjective well-being.From a user-centered perspective,this paper classifies Internet use in terms of individuals’ motivations for using the Internet,and explores the effects of interpersonal Internet use and information-acquisition Internet use on subjective well-being;at the same time,it also introduces digital access as a mediating variable to try to analyze the path of Internet use on subjective well-being.The findings of this paper show that,firstly,the frequency of Internet use is higher among Chinese Internet users,and the frequency of interpersonal Internet use is higher than that of information-acquisition Internet use,and there are significant differences between the two types of Internet use in terms of gender,urban and rural areas,and different age groups.Second,the level of subjective well-being of Chinese Internet users is higher,and there are significant differences between urban and rural areas and different age groups in subjective well-being.Third,there are differences in the effects of different types of Internet use on subjective well-being.Interpersonal Internet use has a significant positive effect on subjective well-being,which supports the theory of "Internet gain effect",while information acquisition Internet use has a positive effect on subjective well-being,but it does not show significance.Fourth,when digital access is added to the model as a mediating variable,the results show that digital access plays a fully mediating role between interpersonal and subjective well-being,i.e.,the effect of interpersonal network use on subjective well-being is fully mediated by digital access,while there is no mediating effect between information-access network use and subjective well-being.This suggests that there are differences in the effects of the two different types of Internet use on subjective well-being and their impact paths.The innovation of this paper is to use the 2017 China General Social Survey(CGSS)data to classify Internet use based on the use and satisfaction theory,taking different motivational levels of individuals’ Internet use as the starting point,and to investigate the complex effects between information-acquisition Internet use and interpersonal Internet use and subjective well-being.At the same time,this paper also reveals the mediating effect of digital access between interpersonal Internet use and subjective well-being,which provides a new perspective for understanding how the Internet actually affects subjective well-being.Therefore,the findings of this paper complement,to a certain extent,the previous generalized and singular perceptions of the impact of Internet use on subjective well-being,and have certain theoretical contributions and practical implications.