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The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China

Internet addiction among the elderly is a novel issue in many countries. However, extant research about excessive use of the Internet is focusing on adolescents and younger adults. There are few studies to explore the topic of the elderly's Internet addiction. The purpose of this study is to in...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Jia, Yu, Liu, Tianyuan, Yang, Yang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9459314/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36091503
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.981307
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author Jia, Yu
Liu, Tianyuan
Yang, Yang
author_facet Jia, Yu
Liu, Tianyuan
Yang, Yang
author_sort Jia, Yu
collection PubMed
description Internet addiction among the elderly is a novel issue in many countries. However, extant research about excessive use of the Internet is focusing on adolescents and younger adults. There are few studies to explore the topic of the elderly's Internet addiction. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article adopted a self-reported questionnaire via internet links to collect data. A total of 303 valid samples about Internet addiction for the elderly were obtained in China. The results suggested that real-life social support is significantly and negatively related to Internet addiction among the aged. Moreover, the findings revealed that real-life social support could mitigate Internet addiction by increasing the levels of hopefulness and decreasing the feeling of loneliness. We expect that this study can enrich the understanding of the problematic Internet usage within older populations. Finally, the contributions, practical significance, and limitations of this study were discussed.
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spelling pubmed-94593142022-09-10 The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China Jia, Yu Liu, Tianyuan Yang, Yang Front Public Health Public Health Internet addiction among the elderly is a novel issue in many countries. However, extant research about excessive use of the Internet is focusing on adolescents and younger adults. There are few studies to explore the topic of the elderly's Internet addiction. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. This article adopted a self-reported questionnaire via internet links to collect data. A total of 303 valid samples about Internet addiction for the elderly were obtained in China. The results suggested that real-life social support is significantly and negatively related to Internet addiction among the aged. Moreover, the findings revealed that real-life social support could mitigate Internet addiction by increasing the levels of hopefulness and decreasing the feeling of loneliness. We expect that this study can enrich the understanding of the problematic Internet usage within older populations. Finally, the contributions, practical significance, and limitations of this study were discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-08-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9459314/ /pubmed/36091503 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.981307 Text en Copyright © 2022 Jia, Liu and Yang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Jia, Yu
Liu, Tianyuan
Yang, Yang
The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China
title The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China
title_full The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China
title_fullStr The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China
title_full_unstemmed The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China
title_short The relationship between real-life social support and Internet addiction among the elderly in China
title_sort relationship between real-life social support and internet addiction among the elderly in china
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9459314/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36091503
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.981307
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