Socializing smartly: Differentiated health benefits from online and place-based in-person socialization among older adults in urban China

This study examines the relationship between digitally mediated and spatially embedded forms of socialization and self-reported health among older adults in urban China, while also exploring the moderating role of physical mobility. Using community-based survey data of adults aged 60 and above living in urban Hangzhou, we adopted a multilevel modeling approach and found that online socialization is significantly associated with better health, even after adjusting for sociodemographic covariates. Meanwhile, the place-based in-person socialization showed a positive but nonsignificant association with health in the fully adjusted model. Further interaction analyses indicate that physical mobility significantly moderates the relationship between online socialization and health. Specifically, higher levels of online socialization are significantly associated with better health among older adults with low to average mobility, but this association attenuates and is no longer statistically distinguishable from zero among those with higher physical mobility. In contrast, physical functioning does not significantly moderate the association between place-based in-person socialization and health. These findings suggest that online socialization may serve as a compensatory social resource for older adults facing physical constraints and offer several implications. First, they highlight the importance of digital platforms as a protective social resource for older adults, particularly those with mobility constraints. Second, the study highlights the need to consider heterogeneity in both the socialization modalities and individual functional capacity when designing tailored health-promoting programs for the aging population.