Does digital leisure relate to subjective well-being in later life? Examining roles of enjoyment, social support, and capitalisation

With a rapid increase in use of information and communication technology (ICT) among older adults, benefits of ICT use become an important concern for research. ICT use is an opportunity to experience leisure in a new way for many older adults, also identified as digital leisure. Although digital leisure may facilitate subjective well-being (SWB), it is not clear in what specific mechanisms digital leisure relates positively to SWB in later life. To address this gap in the literature, we examined whether participation time, enjoyment, social support, and capitalisation (i.e. sharing positive life events with others) during digital leisure had positive correlations with SWB, measured by happiness and life satisfaction, among older adults. Data were collected from 351 participants aged 65 years old or older. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to analyse these data. Our results demonstrated that enjoyment, social support, and capitalisation during digital leisure correlated positively with SWB, whereas participation time did not. In addition, there was a significant interaction between social support and capitalisation. We discuss implications of these results in terms of fostering older adults’ SWB by facilitating their experiences of enjoyment, social support, and capitalisation through digital leisure.