Longitudinal Dyadic Associations Between Internet Use and Mental Health Among Middle-Aged and Older Chinese Couples: An Actor-Partner Interdependence Approach

Internet use is usually considered to have beneficial effects on depressive symptoms. However, researchers rarely examine whether individual internet use might affect his/her spouse's depressive symptoms. The present study aimed to explore the longitudinal dyadic interdependence of the association between internet use and depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older couples.

Data for this study came from the 2018 and 2020 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), and the sample consisted of 6,096 middle-aged and older couples (age ≥45). We tested the actor effects and partner effects of internet use on depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older couples by adopting the longitudinal Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM). Further, the heterogeneity of actor effects and partner effects based on gender, age, and residence was also tested.

APIM indicated that both husbands' and wives' internet use had significant actor effects on their depressive symptoms. However, the partner effect was observed only in wives; that is, husbands' internet use was positively associated with their wives' lower depressive symptoms, not vice versa. Furthermore, subgroup analyses showed these effects were not significantly heterogeneous in age and rural-urban subgroups.

This study sheds light on the dyadic and longitudinal associations between internet use and depressive symptoms among middle-aged and older couples in China, thereby providing valuable insights for designing interventions that protect mental health by encouraging couples to use the internet.