Offline and online social networking and life satisfaction among older adults in China: Evidence from the Chinese Longitudinal Aging Social Survey, 2018–2023
China’s rapid population aging raises important challenges for understanding how social relationships shape well-being in later life. While both offline social networking and online communication have been linked to life satisfaction, existing studies rely largely on cross-sectional data and rarely examine how these two forms of social engagement jointly shape well-being. Using three waves of the Chinese Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS, 2018–2023; N = 18,294), we estimated within-person (fixed-effects) associations between offline social networking, social-communicative internet use, and life satisfaction. The results show that online social networking was positively associated with life satisfaction, whereas offline social networking did not exhibit a significant within-person association. More importantly, a positive interaction effect indicates that offline and online social networking were complementary rather than substitutive, such that the well-being benefits of online social networking were greater for individuals with richer offline social ties. This complementary pattern was more pronounced among younger older adults, men, and those living with others. These findings suggest that digital engagement operates within, rather than independently of, existing social structures, and that policies promoting digital inclusion alongside offline social participation may yield greater well-being gains in aging societies.
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