Communication and Society Research Centre, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Department of Sociology, Institute of Social Sciences, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
J Med Internet Res. 2022 Jan 3;24(1):e20466. doi: 10.2196/20466.
Social isolation has a negative impact on the quality of life of older people; therefore, studies have focused on identifying its sociodemographic, economic, and health determinants. In view of the growing importance of the internet as a means of communication, it is essential to assess whether internet use interferes with social isolation.
This study specifically aims to clarify the relationship between internet use and social isolation of individuals aged ≥50 years, for which other surveys present contradictory results.
We performed logistic regression analysis with social isolation as the dependent variable, internet use as the interest variable, and several other sociodemographic, economic, and health characteristics of the individuals as control variables. The sample size was 67,173 individuals aged 50 years and older from 17 European countries (Portugal, Greece, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, and Croatia) plus Israel, who were interviewed in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), wave 6.
The results show that countries differ in the level of social isolation and rate of internet use by individuals aged 50 years and older. They also evidence that in most of the countries analyzed, social isolation of internet users was lower compared to that of nonusers after controlling for a set of sociodemographic, economic, and health characteristics of the individuals that have been previously described in the literature as determinants of social isolation. Indeed, on average, although 31.4% of individuals in the nonuser group experienced high social isolation, only 12.9% of individuals who used the internet experienced this condition.
Internet users show lower social isolation. This result underlines the importance of promoting e-inclusion in Europe as a way to counter social isolation of individuals aged 50 years and older.
社会孤立会对老年人的生活质量产生负面影响；因此，研究集中于确定其社会人口学、经济和健康决定因素。鉴于互联网作为一种沟通手段的重要性日益增加，评估互联网使用是否会干扰社会孤立至关重要。
本研究旨在明确互联网使用与≥50 岁人群社会孤立之间的关系，其他调查结果存在矛盾。
我们使用逻辑回归分析，将社会孤立作为因变量，互联网使用作为感兴趣的变量，以及个体的其他一些社会人口学、经济和健康特征作为控制变量。样本量为来自 17 个欧洲国家（葡萄牙、希腊、意大利、西班牙、丹麦、瑞典、奥地利、比利时、法国、德国、瑞士、卢森堡、波兰、捷克共和国、斯洛文尼亚、爱沙尼亚）和以色列的 67173 名≥50 岁的个体，这些个体在欧洲健康、老龄化和退休调查（SHARE）第六波中接受了调查。
结果表明，各国在≥50 岁人群的社会孤立程度和互联网使用率方面存在差异。研究还表明，在大多数分析的国家中，在控制了个体的一组社会人口学、经济和健康特征后，与非使用者相比，互联网使用者的社会孤立程度较低，这些特征在文献中被描述为社会孤立的决定因素。事实上，尽管非使用者群体中有 31.4%的个体经历了高度的社会孤立，但只有 12.9%的互联网使用者经历了这种情况。
互联网使用者表现出较低的社会孤立。这一结果强调了在欧洲促进电子包容的重要性，这是一种应对≥50 岁人群社会孤立的方式。
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