Media use; Intensive longitudinal study; Old age; Healthy aging; Well-being
Hofer Matthias, Eden Allison (2020), Successful aging through television. Selective and compensatory television use and well-being, in
Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, (0883-8151).
Seifert Alexander, Hofer Matthias, Rössel Jörg (2019), Older adults’ perceived sense of social exclusion from the digital world, in
Educational Gerontology, 1-11.
HoferMatthias, HargittaiEszter, BüchiMoritz, SeifertAlexander (2019), Older adults’ Internet use and subjective well-being: The moderating role of Internet skills, in
International Journal of Communication, 13, 4426-4443.
Seifert Alexander, Hofer Matthias, Allemand Mathias (2018), Mobile Data Collection: Smart, but Not (Yet) Smart Enough, in
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 12, 1-4.
HoferMatthias, RiegerDiana (2018), On being happy through entertainment: Hedonic and non-hedonic entertainment experiences, in Muñiz Velázquez J. A., Pulido C. (ed.), Routledge, London, 120-128.
HoferMatthias, A Measurement Burst Study of Media Use and Well-Being among Older Adults: Logistically Challenging at Best, in Hargittai Eszter (ed.), 0000-0003-4199-4868 , Ann Arbor, MI, 1-25.
HoferMatthias, Aging and media use and preferences, in David Ewoldsen, Van den Bulck Jan, Mares Marie-Louise (ed.), Wiley, Hoboken, NJ.
Author |
Hofer, Matthias |
Publication date |
03.02.2020 |
Persistent Identifier (PID) |
https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/U84FP |
Repository |
osf.io
|
Abstract |
The data stems from the three burst conducted between September 2018 and September 2019. During five days (Monday - Friday), participants were asked about their emotional well-being, their whereabouts, and their social interactions three times a day (at 9am, at 2.30 pm, and at 9pm). At 9pm they were also asked about their well-being on different dimensions (social, emotional, cognitive). During the measurement, they wore a the so-called media watch. This watch recorded their radio and their television use automatically. These automatically recorded data were condensed into minutes right before each time the questionnaire was triggered (at 9am, at 2.30 pm, and at 9pm).
Media can play and important role in older adults’ lives. They can help them structure their day, provide them with useful information about the environment, they are living in, or even fulfill crucial intrinsic needs. Thus, media use can have a profound impact on older adults’ well-being. However, research also shows that media can also have detrimental effects in the daily life of their users. For instance, media use can displace individuals from other activities and thereby foster loneliness. An individual’s well-being and mental health is a key factor in the process of healthy aging, and media use is likely to play a major role in this process, as older adults are a demographic group with a high amount of time spent using media. The proposed project will focus on the role of media use in older adults’ daily lives and the dynamic relationship between their media use and their well-being. To ex-amine these dynamics, an intensive longitudinal study - a so-called measurement burst study (MBS) over two years is proposed to track media use and well-being of 100 healthy older adults. Overall, the proposed MBS pro-ject has the following research goals: (1) The examination of the interplay of older adults’ daily media use and their (social, subjective, and psychological) well-being. (2) The application of a longitudinal research design that combines (a) longitudinal assessments over relatively long periods (three measurement occasions every five/six months over two years) to map long-term change in media use, well-being and the relationship of the two, and (b) intensive daily assessments of older adults’ well-being (three times a day) and continuous registration of their media use (TV, radio, newspaper, Internet) over one week at the three measurement occasions mentioned above. Such intensive measurements allow for the examination of both between- and within-person developments of media use and well-being and the relationships between the two in the daily life of older adults. Finally, this research focusses on (3) the examination of the influence of the manner of media use and rather stable personality and situational factors (living situation or health) on media use and well-being and their interrelation. This projects will improve our understanding of the role of media use in the daily life of older adults and the interplay of media use and older adults’ subjective, social and psychological well-being. The design used in this proposed research project is unique in that it allows the assessment of the short-term and long-term dynamics of the interplay of older adults’ media use and well-being as an important factor in the process of healthy aging. Therefore, this research project can further improve our understanding of the role of media in the process of healthy aging.