Affiliation:
1. Psychology, University of California, Davis
Abstract
Abstract
Objectives
Researchers have hypothesized that using Information and Communications Technology (ICT), such as e-mail and social media, may buffer older adults from normative age-graded declines in psychological adjustment. However, past intervention research has been unable to conclusively evaluate this proposition, and no studies to date have examined this topic using naturalistic large-scale longitudinal methods.
Method
In this preregistered study, we examined the codevelopment between three aspects of psychological adjustment (loneliness, satisfaction with life [SWL], and depressiveness) and three factor-analytically derived clusters of ICT use (instrumental, social, and media) using a longitudinal representative sample of 2,922 Dutch adults aged 65 and older that contributed data annually from 2012 to 2017.
Results
Latent growth curve analyses indicated that ICT use was largely unrelated to psychological adjustment, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Of 36 associations tested, three were significant, and only one remained significant after including health and demographic covariates. Specifically, higher levels of media ICT use at baseline predicted steeper declines in SWL across the study period. Furthermore, results of random-intercept cross-lagged analyses indicated that change in ICT use did not predict future change in psychological adjustment, and vice versa.
Discussion
Results of this study help clarify the mixed results of past intervention research, indicating that effects of ICT use on psychological adjustment tend to be either null or much smaller than can be detected using typical intervention sample sizes. Overall, these results suggest that the association between technology use and psychological adjustment is negligible in older adults.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Geriatrics and Gerontology,Gerontology,Clinical Psychology,Social Psychology
Cited by
14 articles.
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