Hans-Werner Wahl

Digital involvement shapes aging, with both positive and negative effects. This study examines how different Internet use types (social, information-seeking, entertainment) relate to older adults’ social participation, considering both objective (social activity level) and perceived social participation (loneliness and sense of mattering i.e., feeling important to others). Furthermore, this study examined whether digital skills moderate the associations between Internet use and social participation outcomes. Cross-sectional data from 426 community-dwelling adults aged 50-95 (M = 69.1) in Germany were analyzed using hierarchical linear regressions and moderation analyses. Social use and information-seeking were positively associated with objective social participation, while media streaming showed a negative association. More frequent social Internet use was associated with lower loneliness. Higher digital skill levels strengthened the negative association between social Internet use and loneliness. The findings suggest distinct associations between different types of Internet use and social participation, with digital skills potentially moderating these associations in later life.

Background: Digital mobility outcomes (DMOs) measured under real-world conditions allow for differentiated insights into mobility patterns of older adults. This study provides an advanced description of real-world walking in community-dwelling older adults and identifies correlates of walking amount, pattern and speed. Methods: This cross-sectional study used baseline data from the SMART-AGE intervention trial with community-dwelling older adults (age ≥ 67 years). Assessment procedures included one-week monitoring of real-world walking using a wearable device (Axivity AX6), clinical outcomes, and tablet-based questionnaires. DMOs describing the amount (steps, walking duration), pattern (e.g., number of walking bouts [WBs]) and pace (mean and 90th percentile [P90] walking speed) of real-world walking were extracted using a validated computational pipeline. Data were included with ≥ 12 h/day wear time on ≥ 3 days. Stepwise hierarchical linear mixed modelling examined associations between DMOs and sociodemographic correlates, environmental conditions, health status (Body Mass Index), locomotor capacity (Timed Up & Go [TUG]), fall-related concerns (Short FES-I) and cognitive processing speed (Symbol Search Score). Results: The final sample of 569 participants with a mean age of 75.0 ± 5.6 years (52% women; 56% higher education) showed a mean walking activity of 11 746 ± 5 446 steps/day, 432.3 ± 153.8 WBs / day in total, and a mean walking speed of 0.75 ± 0.13 m/s in longer (> 30s) WBs. Age was consistently related to real-world walking across all DMOs, showing non-linear trends. We found sex-related patterns of walking, as women had more WBs in total but fewer longer (> 30 s) WBs than men. Body Mass Index and locomotor capacity were consistent predictors of walking across all DMOs (β = -0.08 to -0.25, p < 0.05). Conclusion: This study provides detailed and novel insights into real-world walking in a highly active population of older adults, highlighting lower walking activity with increasing age and differences in activity patterns between men and women. Mobility data may serve as a reference for community-dwelling older adults and facilitate the identification of early changes in everyday mobility, thereby informing future mobility recommendations and preventive strategies.

Internet use plays an important role in social participation in later life, yet little is known about how different domains of Internet use are linked to social outcomes or which factors shape engagement in these domains. Using an integrative approach, this study examines cognitive and affective attitudes toward Information and Communication Technology (ICT), age, and gender as predictors of social, informational, and entertainment-related Internet use and investigates how these domains relate to subjective (loneliness) and objective (social activity) indicators of social participation. Data were drawn from the baseline assessment of the SMART-AGE randomized controlled trial, comprising 648 community-dwelling adults aged 67–93 years (M = 75.0, SD = 5.63; 52% female). The proposed structural equation model showed good fit to the data. Positive affective but not cognitive attitudes as well as younger age were significantly correlated with all three Internet use domains. Male gender was associated with greater informational and entertainment Internet use, but not with social use. Among the Internet use domains, social use was linked to lower loneliness, informational use was positively associated with social activity, and entertainment use was negatively associated with social activity. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of affective attitudes in shaping engagement in different forms of Internet use and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how different forms of Internet use are related to social participation in later life.

A pivotal sector in society’s ongoing digital transformation is healthcare, where new digital health services are constantly emerging on the market. In Germany, legal requirements reinforce this pr...

Zusammenfassung: Kohortenuntersuchungen in der Gerontologie vergleichen ältere Menschen heute mit Gleichaltrigen von vor mehreren Jahrzehnten. In diesem Beitrag werden solche Kohorteneffekte in Bezug auf Einsamkeitserleben, Kontrollüberzeugungen und Selbstwirksamkeitserleben, Wohlbefinden, emotionale Gestimmtheit und psychische Gesundheit sowie Einstellungen und Sichtweisen zum Älterwerden beschrieben. Hierbei ergibt sich insgesamt ein Bild von positiven Kohorteneffekten. Zum Beispiel ist in heutigen Kohorten von Älteren Einsamkeit zurückgegangen und das Erleben von Kontrolle über das eigene Leben ist im Vergleich zu früher angestiegen.