Digital Leisure among Older Adults: Connections to Social Support, Flow, and Social Inclusion

Abstract

Although digital leisure may help older adults experience social support, flow, and social inclusion, it is unknown if flow mediates the relationship between social support and social inclusion in later life. To address this question, we examined data from 325 older adults who completed in-person surveys measuring social support, flow, and social inclusion associated with digital leisure. We used structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze data. SEM results showed that social support correlated positively with flow; flow correlated positively with social inclusion; and social support correlated positively with social inclusion. The correlation between social support and social inclusion was partially mediated by flow. We identify implications of these results in terms of promoting social inclusion for older adults by: (a) supporting them in seeking sources of social support through digital leisure, and (b) helping them achieve a balance between high level skills and challenges to experience flow during digital leisure.

Keywords:

• Digital leisure
• flow
• older adults
• social inclusion
• social support

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 Taiwan divides each city into several districts, and each district into several neighborhoods that are the smallest administrative unit. There are mayoral elections and neighborhood leader elections every four years. Citizens in a neighborhood vote for the neighborhood leader; thus, these citizens often know the neighborhood leader. For our study, if the neighborhood leader helped us recruit participants, older adults often agreed to complete our questionnaire because the leaders know the older adults and the older adults often respect the leaders. One of the five neighborhood leaders (ages 52–67) was an older adult.