Synergistic impacts of online and offline social participation on older adults’ subjective well-being: evidence from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging

This study investigates the synergistic impacts of online and offline social participation on older adults’ subjective well-being outcomes. By drawing on the socio-emotional selectivity perspective, we conduct a cohort analysis using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Ageing data and find that while online participation alone may increase loneliness, engaging in offline participation will make online participation beneficial. Loneliness serves as a mediating mechanism such that engaging in both online and offline social participation can indirectly enhance satisfaction with life by reducing loneliness. We further find a significant moderating effect of social support, which mitigates the negative impact of loneliness on life satisfaction.