Older Adults and Social App Use: A Subjective Well-Being Perspective

ABSTRACT

Little is known regarding the association between older adults’ use of social apps, such as LINE and WhatsApp, and their feelings of security. According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, positive emotions are crucial to life adaptation. This study therefore intends to clarify the association between older adults’ social app use and their feelings of security as well as the associations between such feelings of security and their depression and subjective well-being based on the IS (information systems) success model and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Data were collected from one hundred and seventy-six valid respondents aged between fifty and eighty and analyzed using the partial least squares (PLS) approach. The results show that older adults’ user satisfaction with and use of social apps significantly enhance their feelings of security, although the R-square is low. Furthermore, feelings of security significantly increase subjective well-being and decrease depression, a factor which decreases subjective well-being. The results of this study highlight the importance of feelings of security to older adults’ psychological health. These results could provide references for the management of older adults’ psychological health.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• feelings of security
• social app use
• subjective well-being
• the IS success model

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the precious opinions of Dr. Jung-Ren Chen about the English of the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).