How Does Internet Use Improve Mental Health among Middle-Aged and Elderly People in Rural Areas in China? A Quasi-Natural Experiment Based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS)

One of the most significant public health issues in rural China is how to improve the mental health of middle-aged and older individuals. Using 2013, 2015, and 2018 CHARLS panel data, this paper properly examined the effects of Internet use on the mental health of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China based on the difference-in-differences method. The findings are as follows: (1) Internet use effectively improves the mental health status of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China; (2) compared to the middle-aged group, Internet use has a more obvious effect on the mental health of the elderly; (3) further analysis showed that reading news, watching videos, and playing games online could significantly improve the mental health status of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China, while chatting online and other Internet activities cannot significantly improve mental health status; and (4) playing games, watching videos, and reading news have different effects on the mental health of middle-aged and elderly people in rural China. The results indicate that playing games have a better effect on depression levels than watching videos. In contrast, watching news had the lowest effect on depression levels among middle-aged and elderly people in rural China. The results of this study also show the latest evidence that Internet use can help China's rural middle-aged and elderly populations to reduce social isolation, establish new social connections, gain social support, and, ultimately, achieve active ageing. Therefore, promoting multiple forms of interaction is an effective path to prevent loneliness, which has become the new policy direction of the government to create an age-friendly Internet environment using various measures in the future to eliminate the barriers to Internet access affecting the middle-aged and elderly in rural China.