CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 189Technology Use by Older AdultsHealth disparities and outcomesAging and Gerontology Research

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 33 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Social Media Communication and Loneliness Among Older Adults: The Mediating Roles of Social Support and Social Contact

Zhang, Kunyu, Kim, Kyungmin, Silverstein, Nina M, Song, Qian, Burr, Jeffrey A·2021·The Gerontologist
DOI 10.1093/geront/gnaa197
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Social media communication offers a medium for helping older people stay socially and emotionally connected with others. This study investigated the association between social media communication with close social ties and loneliness among community-dwelling older adults. The study also examined the mediating roles of social support and social contact. Research Design and Methods: Four waves of data from the Health and Retirement Study (2010/2012 and 2014/2016) were used to address the research questions (N = 7,524). A path model was estimated to examine the association between social media communication and older adults’ loneliness. We also examined whether the association between social media communication and loneliness was mediated by perceived social support from close social ties (children, other family members, and friends) and frequency of contact with social network members (phone, in-person contact, and writing letters/e-mail). Results: The results showed that frequent social media communication was associated with lower levels of loneliness, adjusting for previous levels of loneliness. The relationship between social media communication and loneliness was mediated by perceived social support and social contact. Thus, social media communication was associated with higher levels of perceived social support and social contact, which were related to lower levels of loneliness among older adults. Discussion and Implications: These findings suggested that social media communication may be considered an intervention to reduce loneliness among older people by increasing levels of social support and social contact.

Overview

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1093/geront/gnaa197

Cites

33 of 33 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 34 references

1 of the 34 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 3

  1. Muthén, 1998–2015, Mplus user’s guide
  2. Segrin, 2005, Family communication
  3. Williams, 2009, A platform for intervention and research on family communication in elder care., 269

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 101–189 of 189

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Zhang, K., Kim, K., Silverstein, N. M., Song, Q., & Burr, J. A.
Affiliations
University of Massachusetts Boston (US)
Corresponding author
Zhang, Kunyu
ORCID
Venue
The Gerontologist
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2020-12-07
Volume
61
Issue
6
Pages
888-896
ISSN
  • 0016-9013 (ISSN-L)
  • 1758-5341
DOI
10.1093/geront/gnaa197
OpenAlex
W3110854850
Cited by
189
References
34
Citations by year
2026: 30 · 2025: 56 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 7
FWCI
27.50
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
Locations
  • The Gerontologist (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Seoul National University Open Repository (Seoul National University) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Geriatrics and Gerontology › Technology Use by Older Adults
  • Social Sciences › Health › Health disparities and outcomes
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Aging and Gerontology Research
Keywords
social media communication, loneliness, older adults, social support, social contact, mediation, community-dwelling older adults, social connectedness, family and friends
MeSH terms
Aged, Communication, Humans, Loneliness, Social Support, Friends, Social Media

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review