JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

In the digital and intelligent era, a considerable number of elderly people in China still have a low level of digital inclusion. Although existing literature has explored the relationship between the use of the Internet and depression among the elderly to some extent, it mainly focused on surface aspects rather than delving into the underlying mechanism of action among digital inclusion, depression, and non-cognitive abilities, which thus remains unclear.

Objective:

This study aims to explore the mediating role of non-cognitive abilities between digital inclusion and depression among the elderly in China, as well as the parallel mediating roles of each dimension of the Big Five personality traits in the relationship between them.

Methods:

We extracted cross-sectional data from a nationally representative survey, namely the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), which centered on older adults (aged 60 years or above). The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10), which consists of 10 items, was employed to determine the presence of depression. The 15-item short version of the Big Five Personality Inventory was utilized to measure the non-cognitive abilities of the elderly. Logistic regression was adopted to explore the relationship between various dimensions of Internet use and depression. Model 4 of the PROCESS macro program was applied to test, respectively, the mediating role of non-cognitive abilities between digital inclusion and depression status, as well as the parallel mediating roles of each dimension of the Big Five personality traits in the relationship between them.

Results:

This study found that digital inclusion was negatively related to depression in elderly (β =-0.062, t=-3.807, P<0.01). After adding Non-cognitive abilities as a mediating variable, depression was found to be negatively related to Digital inclusion(β =-0.033, t=-2.052, P<0.05). Non-cognitive abilities on the relationship between Levels of Digital inclusion and depression was significant, and accounted for 46.91% of the total effect. In the parallel mediation model, conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability all partially mediated the association between digital inclusion and depression. The parallel mediation effects of conscientiousness (β =-0.0031, 95%CI [-0.0060, -0.0008], P < 0.05), extraversion (β = -0.0088, 95%CI [-0.0138, -0.0049], P < 0.05), and emotional stability (β =-0.0115, 95%CI [-0.0932, -0.0298], P < 0.05) of non-cognitive abilities in the relationship between digital inclusion and depression were significant, accounting for 5.04%, 14.31%, and 18.70% of the total effect respectively.

Conclusions:

Our results demonstrate that digital inclusion is a negative predictor of depression among the elderly, and non-cognitive abilities play a partial mediating role between digital inclusion and depression status. Moreover, conscientiousness, extraversion, and emotional stability of the Big Five personality traits have parallel mediating effects between digital inclusion and depression status.