The Relationship Between Social Participation and Internet Addiction in Older Persons

The addiction to technology of older persons is an emerging field, because the literature tends to focus only on the benefits of the use of technology in this age group. Along with this, there is interest in how participation improves the quality of life of older persons. In this context, the present study aims to examine the association between the level of participation of older individuals and their addictive behaviors to Internet, including lack of control and emotional deregulation. All this, considering the social influence for the use of the Internet as a mediator of this relationship. For this, 151 older Internet users answered a set of questions about internet addiction, level of participation, and social influence for the use of technology. A structural equation modeling was carried out to evaluate the mediation model. The results show that the level of participation is indirectly associated with the two dimensions of Internet addiction, via the social influence that promotes the use of technology. This has important implications in the development of interventions that encourage Internet use in older persons, decreasing addictive behaviors that could emerge as the use of technology becomes more common.