Social Capital, Life Meaning, and Depressive Symptoms Among Older Adults in China: The Moderating Roles of Digital Social Participation and Digital Social Interaction
Abstract
Population aging and digitization are two defining trends in China, yet how digital forms of social participation and interaction condition the association between social capital and older adults’ mental health remains unclear. Using cross-sectional data from the 2022 China Family Panel Studies (N = 4394 adults aged 60 years and above), this study examined whether two bounded indicators of social capital—intergenerational interaction frequency and interpersonal trust—are associated with depressive symptoms, whether life meaning carries part of those associations, and whether two forms of digital social engagement moderate them. A moderated mediation model with five regression equations was estimated by survey-weighted least squares, with design-based standard errors and confidence intervals obtained by bootstrap replication of primary sampling units. Both intergenerational interaction frequency (β = −0.238, p < 0.001) and interpersonal trust (β = −0.756, p < 0.001) were negatively associated with depressive symptoms, and the indirect associations through life meaning were −0.047 (95% CI −0.072 to −0.021) and −0.163 (95% CI −0.252 to −0.074) respectively, accounting for 19.6% and 21.6% of the corresponding total associations. Both digital measures moderated associations within the model and in opposite directions: the negative association between interpersonal trust and depressive symptoms was stronger among respondents who used WeChat (interaction β = −0.719, p = 0.011), whereas the positive association between intergenerational interaction frequency and life meaning was weaker among those who shared more often on WeChat Moments (interaction β = −0.035, p < 0.001). These findings suggest that digital social participation and digital social interaction are not merely independent correlates of older adults’ mental health but conditions under which the associations between specific social capital indicators and mental health take different forms.