Fitting the internet-based service and the elderly's psychological needs under socioemotional selectivity perspectives: The example of internet communication service

With the accelerated development of aging population and information technology, researches on the internet-based service for the elderly, especially for their psychological needs, have attracted great attentions of both academic and practical circles. Proper usage of Internet can bring many benefits to the elderly, like reducing the sense of loneliness and keeping positive attitude. But the literatures of how to improve the Internet usage lack special factors for the elderly. Under socioemotional selectivity perspectives, this paper took Internet communication service as an example to discuss the fitness between Internet-based service and the elderly's psychological needs, and empirically tested the hypothesis by focus group and an experiment. First, there are two types of the elderly's Internet needs: instrumental needs (e.g. autonomy, personal growth), and socioemotional needs (e.g. family solidarity, sense of belonging, positive experience). Both of them can improve the elderly's usage intention of Internet-based services. Under the instrumental needs, the elderly has stronger usage intention of non-communication services, while under socioemotional needs, the elderly has stronger usage intention of communication services. In addition, the older adults expect more positive experiences in the usage of Internet and have more socioemotional needs than the younger ones. Thus, the above results show that the elderly need more online communication services. Accordingly, the related institutions that aim at offering services for the elderly could make efforts on service design and pattern of activity to effectively promote the elderly's communication via Internet.