The Effects of Mobile Social Media Use on Older Migrants’ Social Integration and Life Satisfaction: Use Types and Self-Esteem Perspective

Abstract

With the development of society and economy, more and more elderly people migrate from rural to urban areas. Nowadays, mobile social media (MSM) is a very important tool for information search, social communication, and entertainment among older migrants, and it is necessary to clear how the self-esteem level and the use types of MSM contribute to older migrants’ social integration and life satisfaction. Based on the literature review, we constructed a research model and tested the model using sample data of 306 Chinese older migrants. The results show that self-esteem has a negative impact on the social use and entertainment use of MSM. Our study also confirms that social use and entertainment use have different effects on older migrants’ social integration and life satisfaction. Social use has a positive impact on social integration and life satisfaction, while entertainment use has a negative impact on social integration and has no significant impact on life satisfaction. Furthermore, the perceived social integration of older adults can significantly predict their life satisfaction.

Keywords

older migrants use types self-esteem social integration life satisfaction

Since the 1990s, there has been a rapid process of urban–rural migration in China (Meng, 2012). In 2019, China’s cities had about 277.5 million rural workers, accounting for 36% of China’s 770 million total workforce (National Bureau of Statistics, 2020). In the context of filial piety culture in China, family is the main source of daily care and economic support for the elderly (Chou, 2011; Zhang et al., 2019). Due to the large number of floating populations in China, the traditional family support system from adult children is under pressure (Evandrou et al., 2017). To maintain the family balance, when adult children migrate to the city, their parents will move to live with them for family reunion, grandchildren care, pension, medical treatment, and other reasons (Zhao et al., 2021), which forms the older migrants group. In June 2018, the National Health Commission released data showing that China has nearly 18 million older migrants, accounting for 7.2% of 247 million floating population in China (National Health Commission, 2019).

In China, there are many obstacles in the process of urban–rural migration, which caused by institutional constraints, information and search costs, social norms, regional cultural, and linguistic differences (Wang & Benjamin, 2019). The ability of migrants in health, social cognition, and using new technologies will decrease with age (Vaillant & Wolff, 2010; Xu et al., 2019), which makes older migrants encounter more difficulties and challenges than young migrants in the journey of migration (Chou, 2007). Older migrants also face language and cultural barriers (Lu et al., 2019), which brings them obstacles to adapt to the new environment. In addition, due to the rupture of the social connection between older migrants and their original residence, they are faced with many problems such as cultural integration, identity recognition, and so on in their new residence, so there is a relatively prominent risk of psychological imbalance for older migrants, which make them one of the most difficult group for social integration (National Health Commission, 2019). Although most of them migrated with their adult children, their children may be able to adapt to new lifestyles more quickly, which makes them often isolated from their families (Chou, 2007).

In the Internet era, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) can help create a harmonious intergenerational society (Chen & Chan, 2011), and mobile social media (MSM) is a new type of ICT. Humphreys (2013) pointed out that MSM can loosely be considered software, applications, or services accessed through mobile devices that allow users to connect with other people and to share information, news, and content. Compared with regular social media, MSM could let users break the limitation of time and space and interact with their relatives and friends in real time and attracts large number of users (Lavie et al., 2012). In China, WeChat has more than 1 billion users and is the most popular MSM, which has social and entertainment functions and is very popular among older adults (China Internet Network Information Center, 2020). At present, a number of studies have paid close attention to the migration issues in China, which provide a wealth of empirical evidence for the association between new technology use and subjective well-being and quality of life of migrants (Chen, 2013; Lin et al., 2011; Zhao et al., 2021).

Some studies have shown that MSM can help migrants to obtain social support and accumulate social capital in the place of immigration, which will have a positive impact on their social integration and subjective well-being (Pang, 2018a; Wei & Gao, 2017). At the same time, other studies have pointed out that MSM can also have a negative impact on users, making users feel lonely and depressed (Hwang & Park, 2011; O’Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson, 2011; Phu & Gow, 2019), especially when they are overused (Wright et al., 2013), thus affecting their social activities and forming interpersonal relationships (Yoo & Jeong, 2017). Therefore, it is necessary to carry out more research to understand the potential consequences of MSM use and to explain those apparently inconsistent findings. Previous studies have shown that based on the main functions of serving users, social media use can be divided into two types: social use (communication and interaction, update status, comment, etc.) and entertainment use (playing games, listening to music, browsing the web, etc.) (Pang, 2018b; Wang et al., 2014). Additionally, some studies have pointed out that different levels of self-esteem have significantly different effects on users’ time spent on MSM, activities they participate in, and perceived subjective well-being (Jang et al., 2018; Shchebetenko, 2019). However, to the best of our knowledge, there is currently no research to explore the impact of MSM use on the social life of older migrants from the perspective of use types and self-esteem. To fill in these gaps, this study selects older migrants as the research population to explore the potential impact of self-esteem on their MSM use and the potential impact of different types of MSM use on their social integration and life satisfaction.

Literature Review

Self-Esteem and MSM

Self-esteem is an important part of self-concept and refers to one’s subjective evaluation of the self (Cast & Burke, 2002; Saiphoo et al., 2020). For most people, self-esteem is generally a stable trait (Trzesniewski et al., 2003) and has an important impact on individual’s psychosocial adaptation (Leary, 2003). For example, Leary (2005) emphasized that self-esteem can regulate the process of individual cognition and evaluation of others and external things. MSM is a convenient and fast social communication service platform, which is conducive to low self-esteem individuals to cross communication barriers, interact with others, and establish or maintain good interpersonal relationships (Lee et al., 2012). Therefore, individuals with low self-esteem are more likely to use online social interaction as a substitute for off-line social interaction and spend more time on social networking sites (Jang et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2012) and even become more addicted (Kuss & Griffiths, 2011). Although MSM use could help users with low self-esteem build a huge network (Busalim et al., 2019) and obtain social support (Błachnio et al., 2016), it also explains why these users spend more time on MSM. Based on the main functions of serving users, MSM use can be divided into two types: social use and entertainment use (Wang et al., 2014). Whether it’s social use or entertainment use, older migrants need to spend time on social media. Mehdizadh (2010) pointed out that users with low self-esteem spend more than 1 hr on social media a day. Recently, a meta-analytic review showed that there is a significantly negative correlation between self-esteem and the time spent on social media (Saiphoo et al., 2020). Jarman et al. (2021) claimed that users’ motivations for using social media include “relationship maintenance” and “passing time,” which are positively correlated with the types of social media engagement (e.g., social use, entertainment use). The empirical research results of Zhao (2021) showed that both social use and entertainment use have a positive impact on users’ social media addiction, and the time users spend on social media includes social use and entertainment use. Hence, two hypotheses are put forward:

Hypothesis 1: Self-esteem has a negative impact on the social use of MSM of older migrants.

Hypothesis 2: Self-esteem has a negative impact on the entertainment use of MSM of older migrants.

MSM and Social Integration

Social integration is often conceptualized as the extent to which individuals participate in various social relationships (Herrero & Gracia, 2007; Holtan, 2008). To establish social communities in different cultural backgrounds, it is necessary for people with different backgrounds to share similar social concepts (Adachi, 2011). In other words, even individuals from different geographical regions and cultural backgrounds can have the same social image, generate a sense of belonging to the same social group, and comply with these common normative requirements. Additionally, although there are different groups in a community, personal identity is an essential element to bring everyone together equally by breaking down prejudices and giving individuals a general identity in a multicultural environment. Therefore, social integration has gradually become an important topic in the reconstruction of social connections and the establishment of related personal relations (Madge et al., 2009; Scuzzarello, 2012).

Some studies have confirmed that the instant messaging and self-presentation features of MSM are conducive to personal online social interaction (Chen, 2015), allowing users to maintain and develop social capital in a computer-mediated environment (Li & Chen, 2014; Pang, 2018b), promoting users’ social participation, and improving users’ subjective well-being (Pang, 2018a; Zhan et al., 2016). However, other empirical evidences suggest that MSM use may be associated with several negative psychosocial consequences, including loneliness, depression, and increased stress (Lup et al., 2015; Sidani et al., 2016).

At present, many studies have focused on the potential impact of MSM use on personal social integration, which provide a lot of support for this view: Integrating online communication tools into mainstream social networks could bring more valuable resources or benefits for social purposes (Forbush & Foucault Welles, 2016; Madge et al., 2009; Pang, 2018a). As pointed out by Ewart and Snowden (2012), social media can help migrants keep in touch with their original social relations and develop new ones, which plays a crucial role in the process of social integration. For example, Wei and Gao’s (2017) research shows that social interaction on MSM could promote the social integration of new urban migrants in China, including their establishment of social identity and social networks as well as social participation in the real world. MSM use can enable the older migrants to keep in touch with their families and friends (Barbosa et al., 2017), obtain social support (Millard et al., 2018), and better engage in social participation and social integration (He et al., 2020). At the same time, if users mainly use the entertainment functions of MSM, such as playing games, watching videos, and so on, they may close themselves and feel lonely and depressed (Pang, 2018b), which is not conducive to their integration into the real society. For older migrants, establishing a social circle and accumulating social capital in the place of immigration will help them better integrate into the new living environment (Zhao et al., 2021), while online games are not conducive to the development of social relations in the real world (Allen & Rson, 2018). In addition, playing online games and other recreational use may increase the risk of users’ social media addiction (Brailovskaia et al., 2018) and reduce their perception of social capital and willingness to participate in real life (Liu et al., 2019). Therefore, the following hypotheses are proposed:

Hypothesis 3: Social use has a positive impact on the social integration of older migrants.

Hypothesis 4: Entertainment use has a negative impact on the social integration of older migrants.

MSM and Life Satisfaction

Life satisfaction is defined as “a comprehensive assessment of a person’s quality of life based on selected criteria” (Shin & Johnson, 1978, p. 478). Applying this definition to migrant groups, life satisfaction is defined as the overall cognitive evaluation of the migrants’ life, and the criteria for judging are determined by individuals (Neto & Fonseca, 2016).

MSM use can promote interactions with strong and weak social relationships, so that users feel that they have received care or attention and get the necessary resources and support from them (Chen & Li, 2017; Johnston et al., 2013). Many studies have focused on the social use of various MSM services, and the results show that social use has a positive impact on users’ life satisfaction (Chen & Li, 2017; Pang, 2018b; Wang et al., 2014; Zhao et al., 2021). For example, Guo et al. (2014) has confirmed that the social use of MSM could enhance users’ perceived bridging social capital and life satisfaction. In a recent study, Kim et al. (2020) demonstrate that individuals communicate with a wide range of people on MSM, which is positively related to their life satisfaction.

Therefore, MSM use for social purposes helps to promote social connections and has a positive impact on personal life (Guo et al., 2014). Khoo and Yang (2020) pointed out that older migrants’ MSM use, which tended to invigorate social sharing and ties, likely conferred benefits on their cognitive functioning and life satisfaction. On the contrary, the relationship between MSM use and personal happiness may become extremely weak or irrelevant when using MSM for personal entertainment purposes, such as playing games or browsing online content (Burke & Kraut, 2016; Pang, 2018b). If users spend a lot of time on the online game, it may have a negative impact on their life satisfaction (Reer et al., 2019; Sampasa & Lewis, 2015). Recently, a study conducted by Teng and his team (2020) shows that Internet gaming negatively affects users’ life satisfaction. Hence, these hypotheses are put forward:

Hypothesis 5: Social use has a positive impact on the life satisfaction of older migrants.

Hypothesis 6: Entertainment use has a negative impact on the life satisfaction of older migrants.

Social Integration and Life Satisfaction

Montoya et al. (2009) pointed out that the concept of social integration essentially emphasizes people’s internal needs, including peer support and subsequent enhancement of personal communication. It can be inferred from the concept of social integration that migrants with a high degree of social integration usually establish a relatively close social network in the immigration area and have good social support and social relations (Wei & Gao, 2017). Existing studies have investigated the relationship between social integration and life satisfaction, and the results shown that Internet users’ perception of social support and social integration are positively correlated with their life satisfaction (Ellison et al., 2007; Goswami, 2012; Ishii, 2017; Yang & Lee, 2018). For example, Bano et al. (2019) have claimed that social integration effectively influences the relationship between time spent on MSM and bonding social capital and also promotes users’ life satisfaction. Specifically for older migrants, the social support they receive in the place of immigration and their perceived social integration may help them to improve their life satisfaction (Zhao et al., 2021). Based on this, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 7: The perceived social integration of older migrants has a positive impact on their life satisfaction.

Research Method

Research Model

Based on the above analysis, a research model was constructed (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Research model.

Sample Selection

In China, the current retirement age is 50–55 for women and 60 for men, and studies related to the elderly usually define the age as 55 or above (Ma et al., 2016). Thus, the target participants for our study were migrants aged 55 and above. Furthermore, the research involves the relationship between MSM use and social integration and life satisfaction, which requires older adults have certain experience of using MSM. Therefore, we require participants to have at least 2 months of experience in using MSM. In addition, according to the suggestions of Ma et al. (2016), the participants selected for interview are generally in good health and able to communicate well with interviewers.

Measures

Social use

The Social Use Scale referred to the research of Chang and Zhu (2011), including three measurement items: “I often make new friends through MSM,” “I often find old friends through MSM,” and “I often keep in touch with my friends through MSM.” A 5-point Likert-type scale was utilized, which ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In this study, the Cronbach’s α was .783.

Entertainment use

The Entertainment Use Scale came from the research of Guo et al. (2014), which had two measurement items in total. These statements consisted of “I often use MSM to enjoy fun and entertainment” and “I often use MSM to spend time online.” The 5-point Likert-type scale was used, and the Cronbach’s α was .867.

Social integration

Referring to previous studies (Herrero & Gracia, 2007; Wei & Gao, 2017), combined with the characteristics of older migrants, a Social Integration Scale was developed, including four measurement items. These items were “I identify with the community I live in now,” “I have familiar people in the community where I live now,” “I feel that I belong to the community,” and “When I leave for a short time, I will miss here.” Older migrants were asked to rate their agreement on a 5-point Likert-type scale, and the Cronbach’s α was .815.

Life satisfaction

To measure older migrants’ life satisfaction, Neto and Fonseca ’s (2016) Migration Life Satisfaction Measurement Scale was used, including 5 measurement items. The example items were: “In most ways, my migrant life is close to my ideal” and “The conditions of my migrant life are excellent.” The 5-point Likert-type scale was used, which ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In our study, this scale’s Cronbach’s α was .795.

Self-esteem

Using the Self-Esteem Scale compiled by Rosenberg (1965), the scale consists of 10 items, all of which use 1–4 points (1 = strongly disagree, 4 = strongly agree), the sum of all the items is the total score of the Self-Esteem Scale. Mullen and his team (2013) have identified a response bias when the Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale is administered to older adults. In accordance with their suggestions (Mullen et al., 2013), we reversed the five negative measurement items to reduce the response bias. The example item was: “On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.” In our study, the Cronbach’s α was .829.

Data Collection

From July to August 2019, considering the scarcity of eligible older migrants, we selected research samples from five residential areas for migrant population in Hefei city, China, by a convenient sampling method. Hefei, the capital of Anhui Province, is one of the important cities in central and eastern China, with a large number of floating populations, which can provide ideal samples for our research. We recruited participants by posting advertisements in selected residential areas, and all participants were able to get a small gift, such as a towel, toothbrush, and so on, worth about US$2. A total of 320 older migrants were willing to participate in our survey, and each participant signed a consent form. After face-to-face structured questionnaire interview, 306 valid questionnaires were obtained. Due to the personal reasons of the participants, 14 questionnaires were not completed, which were excluded from the follow-up analysis.

Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of older adults in our study. In terms of gender, the proportion of women is as high as 60.1%; in terms of age, the vast majority of respondents are under 70 years old (88.9%); in terms of education, 87.9% of respondents have not received higher education; and in terms of length of migration, most of them are within 5 years (82%).

Table 1.

Sample Demographics.

Category	Number (%)	Category	Number (%)
Gender		Length of migration
Male	122 (39.9%)	<1 Year	59 (19.3%)
Female	184 (60.1%)	1–3 Years	117 (38.2%)
		3–5 Years	75 (24.5%)
Age		>5 Years	55 (18.0%)
55–59 Years	87 (28.4%)
60–64 Years	112 (36.6%)
65–69 Years	73 (23.9%)
≥70 Years	34 (11.1%)
Education level
Preprimary	57 (18.6%)
Primary school	94 (30.7%)
Secondary	118 (38.6%)
Postsecondary	37 (12.1%)

Note. N = 306.

Data Analysis and Results

In our study, data analysis includes measurement verification and hypothesis testing. Validation analysis is used to evaluate the reliability and validity of the scales, while hypothesis testing is used to analyze the hypotheses we put forward. Previous studies have shown that partial least squares (PLS) structural equation model can well evaluate measurement model and structural model and is widely used in the research of new technology use (Ko & Turan, 2020; Liang et al., 2017; Zhao et al., 2021). Thus, the SmartPLS 3.2.8 was used to evaluate the measurement properties and test hypotheses in this study.

Measurement Model Assessment

We verified the reliability and validity of the measurement model. First, convergent validity was test. Convergent validity requires two criteria: items loading >0.5 and average variance extracted (AVE) exceeds .5 (Hair et al., 2016). From Table 2, we know that the AVE value of each constructs exceeds .5. In terms of the items’ loadings, except for SU1 (0.214), SE5 (0.345), and SE8 (0.142), all other items exceed .5. In order to perform path analysis better, these low-load items need to be deleted (Hair et al., 2016). After deleting the three items, PLS algorithm was run again. As shown in Table 2, all constructs in the model present high internal consistency, as both the composite reliability and the Cronbach’s α of all constructs exceed .7. Thus, these values support the internal consistency and convergent validity in the model.

Table 2.

Measurement Model Results.

Constructs	Items	Factor Loading	Cronbach’s α	Composite Reliability	Average Variance Extracted
Self-esteem	SE1	.637	.829	.825	.514
	SE2	.529
	SE3	.512
	SE4	.716
	SE6	.789
	SE7	.653
	SE9	.599
	SE10	.508
Social use	SU2	.663	.783	.826	.713
Social use	SU3	.923	.783	.826	.713
Entertainment use	EU1	.885	.867	.867	.766
Entertainment use	EU2	.865	.867	.867	.766
Social integration	SI1	.729	.815	.816	.527
	SI2	.660
	SI3	.782
	SI4	.727
Life satisfaction	LS1	.764	.795	.801	.503
	LS2	.706
	LS3	.762
	LS4	.582
	LS5	.507

In the aspect of discriminant validity analysis, we adopt the Fornell–Larcker criterion, that is, the AVE square root of each variable is greater than its correlation coefficients with all other variables in the model(Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The results in Table 3 indicate that the measured variables have good discrimination validity and are suitable for path analysis.

Table 3.

Fornell–Larcker Criterion.

Constructs	1	2	3	4	5
1. Self-esteem	.717^a
2. Social use	−.273^b	.844
3. Entertainment use	−.416	.541	.875
4. Social integration	.351	.360	−.302	.726
5. Life satisfaction	.466	.393	.118	.585	.709

^a Diagonal cells in bold indicate the square root of the average variance extracted. ^b Other cells indicate interconstruct correlation coefficients.

Path Analysis

As recommended by Hair et al. (2016), the bootstrapping program of Smart PLS software was used for path analysis (5,000 random samples) and the relevant results were shown in Table 4. It can be seen that the path coefficients between self-esteem and social use and self-esteem and entertainment use are significant (β = −.100, p < .001; β = −.378, p < .001), and both Hypotheses 1 and 2 are supported. The path coefficient between social use and social integration is positive (β = .268, p < .01), while the path coefficient between entertainment use and social integration is negative (β = −.189, p < .05), which indicate that Hypotheses 3 and 4 are supported. Similarly, the path coefficient between social use and life satisfaction is positive (β = .104, p < .05), and Hypothesis 5 is supported. However, the relationship between entertainment use and life satisfaction is not significant (β = .087, p > .05), and Hypothesis 6 cannot be supported. Also, the path coefficient between social integration and life satisfaction is significant (β = .540, p < .001), and Hypothesis 7 is supported. The PLS test results of the structural model are shown in Figure 2.

Table 4.

Results of Hypotheses Testing.

Hypothesis	Path Coefficients	t Value	R² Value	p Value	Results
Hypothesis 1: Self-esteem → Social use	−.100***	1.101	.102	.000	Supported
Hypothesis 2: Self-esteem → Entertainment use	−.378***	5.472	.143	.000	Supported
Hypothesis 3: Social use → Social integration	.268**	2.326	.180	.002	Supported
Hypothesis 4: Entertainment use → Social integration	−.189*	1.847	.180	.015	Supported
Hypothesis 5: Social use → Life satisfaction	.104*	1.133	.536	.032	Supported
Hypothesis 6: Entertainment use → Life satisfaction	.087 ns	0.888	.536	.357	Not supported
Hypothesis 7: Social integration → Life satisfaction	.540***	9.813	.536	.000	Supported

Note. ns = nonsignificant.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Figure 2.

Structural model test outcomes.

Discussion

Main Findings

MSM has become an important part of people’s daily life and is influencing people’s life imperceptibly (Kim et al., 2020). Now, Chinese older migrants are large in number and loyal users of MSM. However, there are few studies on the impact of MSM use on social integration and life satisfaction of older migrants. The main purpose of this study is to explore the impact of self-esteem on MSM use, different types of MSM use on social integration and life satisfaction, and the relationship between social integration and life satisfaction.

Previous studies have pointed out that self-esteem has a negative impact on users’ social media use (Busalim et al., 2019; Jang et al., 2018; Shchebetenko, 2019), but they mainly select young people or college students as the research population. Similarly, our research proves that self-esteem has a negative impact on the social use and entertainment use of older migrants and expands the scope of use of this conclusion. This shows that compared with older migrants with low self-esteem, older migrants with high self-esteem may spend less time on social use and entertainment use. It should be emphasized that the influence coefficient of self-esteem on entertainment use is much higher than that on social use, which indicates that self-esteem has a stronger inhibitory effect on entertainment use. This may be due to the fact that social functions are the most important function of MSM (Humphreys, 2013). Whether the older migrants with high self-esteem or low self-esteem, they need to use MSM to keep in touch with the original social relations and develop new social relations in the immigration area. That is to say, self-esteem has little effect on their social use. Entertainment use is mainly used to kill time by playing games on MSM (Pang, 2018b), and it is easy to develop into social media addiction (Zhao, 2021). Older adults with high self-esteem usually have higher self-control ability (Mei et al., 2016), which helps them control the unnecessary time spent on MSM. Therefore, the inhibitory effect of self-esteem on the entertainment use of older migrants is much stronger than that on social use.

After verification, social use and entertainment use have different influences on the social integration of older migrants. Similar to previous studies (Pang, 2018a; Wei & Gao, 2017), social use has a positive and significant impact on the social integration of older migrants, which is an important predictor of social integration. However, entertainment use has a negative impact on the social integration of older migrants, which is a new research finding. Entertainment use means that older migrants spend time on the entertainment functions of MSM such as online games (Wang et al., 2014), and playing online games and other entertainment uses may reduce users’ willingness to participate in real social activities (Liu et al., 2019; Zhao, 2021), which is not conducive to their development of social relationships in the new living environment. Compared with entertainment use, social use is more able to help older migrants integrate into the new living environment. This may be because social use can help older migrants expand their social circles and accumulate social capital, which has a positive impact on their integration into the new living environment (Zhao et al., 2021). Furthermore, different regions of China have different dialects, and the Putonghua of older migrants is generally poor (Lu et al., 2019), which increases their communication difficulties. In addition to voice communication functions, MSM such as WeChat has text communication functions (Pang, 2018a). These social functions can help older migrants overcome language barriers to a large extent and then better develop new social relationships and integrate into the life of the immigrated area.

As expected, social use and entertainment use have different effects on the life satisfaction of older migrants. Previous studies (Pang, 2018b; Zhao, 2021) have shown that social use has a positive impact on users’ subjective well-being, while the relationship between entertainment use and subjective well-being is not significant. Similarly, in our study, social use could positively predict the life satisfaction of older migrants, while entertainment use does not significantly affect the life satisfaction of older migrants. This shows that older migrants who make full use of the social function of MSM may better integrate into the social life of the immigrated area and obtain higher life satisfaction (Wei & Gao, 2017; Zhao et al., 2021). Instead, if older migrants spend a lot of time and energy on the entertainment function of MSM, their life satisfaction may not be improved. In previous studies (Kim et al., 2020; Phu & Gow, 2019), there are still inconsistent conclusions on the relationship between MSM use and users’ life satisfaction. In our study, different types of MSM use have different effects on users’ life satisfaction, which may be one of the reasons for this inconsistency.

Social integration has a positive and significant impact on life satisfaction (Pang, 2018a; Wei & Gao, 2017), which has also been verified in this study. In line with the existing research (Zhao et al., 2021), the empirical results of this study show that social integration is an important predictor of life satisfaction, and the degree of older migrants’ social integration directly affects their perceived life satisfaction. The older migrants with high degree of social integration can often establish good social relations and get sufficient social support in the immigration area (Montoya et al., 2009), which make them obtain higher life satisfaction (Ishii, 2017). In other words, compared with older migrants with low social integration, those with high social integration are more likely to get the improvement of life satisfaction.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

This study has some theoretical contributions. First of all, this article constructed a new research model to explore the impact of self-esteem on MSM use and different types of MSM use on social integration and life satisfaction of older migrants, which can deepen and expand the connotation and extension of theoretical research on technology use and aging. Secondly, the study confirmed that self-esteem has a negative impact on both social use and entertainment use of MSM of older migrants. As far as we know, this is the first study to explore the relationship between self-esteem and the types of MSM use of older migrants, so this is a new finding in this research field. Thirdly, some studies believe that the use of social media can improve the quality of life of users (Wei & Gao, 2017; Zhao et al., 2021), while others point out that there is no connection or even negative connection between them (Phu & Gow, 2019; Yoo & Jeong, 2017). Our research provides an explanation for this inconsistency, that is, different types of MSM use have different effects on users’ social integration and life satisfaction. In addition, to our knowledge, no prior research to date has explored the relationship between MSM use and the social integration and life satisfaction of older migrants from the perspective of use types and self-esteem. Therefore, our research can extend the current literature in this field.

There are also some practical implications. This study confirmed that social use has a positive impact on social integration and life satisfaction of older migrants in terms of MSM use types. Therefore, the government and the community should guide older migrants to use more social functions of MSM to help them better integrate into the new living environment. Additionally, social integration has a direct impact on life satisfaction, which provides a new idea for community work: pay attention to the social integration of older migrants, especially those with low self-esteem, and help them to integrate into the new living environment through online and off-line activities, so as to obtain higher life satisfaction.

Limitations and Future Study

There are still some shortcomings in the research. Firstly, our study mainly used convenient sampling methods to obtain 306 valid survey samples in Hefei city, China, and used PLS to adapt to the sample size for analysis. In the future, we should consider using random sampling method to expand the survey scope and achieve a larger sample size, so as to facilitate the application of other empirical methods. Secondly, in addition to the self-esteem involved in the study, other factors, such as previous living experience, family situation in the city, local social network, and so on, may influence older migrants' MSM use as well as their social integration and life satisfaction, which will be considered in the future study. Finally, this study uses cross-section data, which may affect the causal relationship between variables. So, longitudinal section data will be considered to make the research conclusions more scientific in the next study.

Conclusion

Nowadays, with the development of mobile network technology and the popularization of smartphones, more and more older migrants have become MSM users, and MSM use gradually affects their social interaction and daily life in the place of immigration. Our research confirmed that self-esteem has a negative impact on the social use and entertainment use of MSM of older migrants, and older migrants with high self-esteem can better control their time spent on MSM. In addition, social use and entertainment use have different effects on social integration and life satisfaction of older migrants. Social use can improve the perceived social integration and life satisfaction of older migrants, while entertainment use has a negative impact on their social integration. Finally, the perceived social integration of older migrants is an important predictor of their life satisfaction. Therefore, paying attention to the MSM use types of older migrants and using MSM to carry out communication and interaction activities can effectively help them to integrate into the new living environment and obtain higher life satisfaction.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article: This work was supported by the Planning Subject for the 14th Five-year Plan of National Education Sciences (Grant No. EIA210425).

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