银发数字鸿沟：互联网技术对老年人身心健康的挑战

The Silver-Haired Digital Divide: The Challenges of Internet Technology for the Physical and Mental Health of the Elderly

摘要: 我国正处于老龄化与数字化交汇时期，一方面老年人口规模和比重持续提高使得老年人身心健康保障面临着严峻挑战，另一方面互联网经济作为一种新型经济形态正持续改变人口与社会关系，老年数字鸿沟严重阻碍了健康老龄化和积极老龄化实现进程。本文基于2020年中国家庭追踪调查数据，实证分析数字鸿沟对老年人身心健康的影响。研究发现，数字鸿沟会显著降低老年人身心健康水平，而代际支持具有调节作用，可以削弱数字鸿沟对老年人身心健康的负向效应。异质性分析显示，相较于数字“接入沟”与“使用沟”，数字“效用沟”对老年人身心健康的影响程度更大；数字鸿沟对健康程度较低的老年人身心健康负面作用更强，具有“马太效应”；与城市老年人相比，农村老年人身心健康更容易受到数字鸿沟影响。因此政府应当进一步完善数字包容政策，加强老年人数字教育，鼓励子女充分发挥代际数字反哺作用，破解老年人数字鸿沟难题，助力实现数字公平与健康老龄化。

Abstract: China is at the intersection of aging and digitization. On the one hand, the increasing size and proportion of the elderly population have posed serious challenges to the physical and mental health protection of the elderly, and on the other hand, the Internet economy as a new type of economic form is continuously changing demographic and social relations, the digital divide among the elderly is a serious obstacle to the realization of healthy and active aging. Based on the data from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of the digital divide on the physical and mental health of the elderly. The study found that the digital divide significantly reduces the physical and mental health of the elderly, while intergenerational support has a moderating effect and can weaken the negative effect of the digital divide on the physical and mental health of the elderly. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the digital “utility gap” has a greater impact on the physical and mental health of the elderly than the digital “access gap” and “utilization gap”; the digital divide has a stronger negative effect on the physical and mental health of the elderly with lower health level, which has a “Matthew effect”; the physical and mental health of the elderly in rural areas is more likely to be affected by the digital divide than that of the elderly in urban areas. Therefore, the government should further improve digital inclusion policies, strengthen digital education for the elderly, and encourage children to give full play to the role of intergenerational digital feedback, so as to solve the problem of the digital divide among the elderly and help realize digital equity and healthy aging.