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BACKGROUND The COVID-19 pandemic brought digital practices and engagement to the forefront of society, which were based on behavioral changes associated with adhering to different government mandates. Further behavioral changes included transitioning from working in the office to working from home, with the use of various social media and communication platforms to maintain a level of social connectedness, especially given that many people who were living in different types of communities, such as rural, urban, and city spaces, were socially isolated from friends, family members, and community groups. Although there is a growing body of research exploring how technology is being used by people, there is limited information and insight about the digital practices employed across different age cohorts living in different physical spaces and residing in different countries. OBJECTIVE This paper presents the findings from an international multisite study exploring the impact of social media and the internet on the health and well-being of individuals in different countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS Data were collected via a series of online surveys deployed between April 4, 2020, and September 30, 2021. The age of respondents varied from 18 years to over 60 years across the 3 regions of Europe, Asia, and North America. On exploring the associations of technology use, social connectedness, and sociodemographic factors with loneliness and well-being through bivariate and multivariate analyses, significant differences were observed. RESULTS The levels of loneliness were higher among respondents who used social media messengers or many social media apps than among those who did not use social media messengers or used ≤1 social media app. Additionally, the levels of loneliness were higher among respondents who were not members of an online community support group than among those who were members of an online community support group. Psychological well-being was significantly lower and loneliness was significantly higher among people living in small towns and rural areas than among those living in suburban and urban communities. Younger respondents (18-29 years old), single adults, unemployed individuals, and those with lower levels of education were more likely to experience loneliness. CONCLUSIONS From an international and interdisciplinary perspective, policymakers and stakeholders should extend and explore interventions targeting loneliness experienced by single young adults and further examine how this may vary across geographies. The study findings have implications across the fields of gerontechnology, health sciences, social sciences, media communication, computers, and information technology. INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT RR2-10.3389/fsoc.2020.574811

Drawing on governmental statements, press releases and major news reports on COVID-19 related measures, support and social issues, we illustrate and examine the challenges families are facing in Singapore during the pandemic. Employing a dual approach, we illustrate the extent of various institutional support and resources for families offered by the government in tandem with social distancing measures to restrict social activities, and closure of non-essential business, and also document issues related to the economy, education, family interactions and mental well-being of families from different social backgrounds. This approach enables us to show the extent to which Singaporean families have adapted to the different economic and social stressors and how institutional support has been utilized as a catalyst to resilience. The pandemic as a force of social change demands urgent research on the social impact on and resilience of families in Singapore. Future research directions should include children’s development with the interaction of family socioeconomic conditions, focus on mental well-being of all generations in the family, continuous safeguard of victims of domestic violence, empowerment, and investigations of the shifting family values. A concerted research strategy will offer the opportunity for a better understanding of the paradigm shift experienced by Singaporean families, and, to identify policy implications on strengthening the resilience of families.

Lifelong learning is regarded as an important channel in promoting active engagement in later life for aging societies. While most studies depict older learners as a group resilient to engaging in ...

Objective Little is known about whether and the extent children’s marital dissolution deteriorates older parents’ mental health. This study examines the association of children’s marital dissolution with parents’ mental health, and whether children’s gender and intergenerational contact and support moderate such an association in South Korea, where family lives are strongly linked under the Confucian collectivistic legacy. Methods We apply fixed-effects models on 15,584 parent–child dyads nested in 5,673 older parents (45–97 years in Wave 1) participating in the four waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA), conducted from 2006 to 2012. Results In South Korea, a son’s transition to marital dissolution is associated with higher levels of parents’ depressive symptoms. Frequent parent–son contacts of at least once a week, living with a son, and increasing financial transfers from parents to a son tend to reduce the negative association of the son’s marital dissolution with parents’ depressive symptoms. Discussion The findings imply that a son’s transition to marital dissolution, as a later-life stressor, is detrimental to parents’ mental health in a patrilineal Asian cultural context. The study also highlights the importance of intergenerational bonding in mitigating the negative impact of children’s marital dissolution upwardly transmitted to their older parents.

With the introduction of the New Rural Social Pension Scheme (NRSPS), pension coverage in rural China has increased substantially during the last decade. We investigate how the new public pension benefits influence intergenerational transfers and subjective well-being of older adults in rural China using panel data from the 2011 and 2013 waves of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). The results of our first-difference regression models show that receiving a public pension goes along with an increase in intergenerational financial support and has a positive impact on the subjective well-being of older adults in rural China. Our analysis represents one of the first studies examining the effects of the introduction of the NRSPS from a longitudinal perspective. The results demonstrate that public pension benefits as a form of institutional financial support are beneficial to the well-being of older adults, while they do not hinder intergenerational exchange.

Drawn from the stress process model, the pandemic has imposed substantial stress to individual economic and mental well-being and has brought unprecedented disruptions to social life. In light of social distancing measures, and in particular physical distancing because of lockdown policies, the use of digital technologies has been regarded as the alternative to maintain economic and social activities. This paper aims to describe the design and implementation of an online survey created as an urgent, international response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The online survey described here responds to the need of understanding the effects of the pandemic on social interactions/relations and to provide findings on the extent to which digital technology is being utilized by citizens across different communities and countries around the world. It also aims to analyze the association of use of digital technologies with psychological well-being and levels of loneliness. The data will be based on the ongoing survey (comprised of several existing and validated instruments on digital use, psychological well-being and loneliness), open for 3 months after roll out (ends September) across 11 countries (Austria, France, Germany, India, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and UK). Participants include residents aged 18 years and older in the countries and snowball sampling is employed via social media platforms. We anticipate that the findings of the survey will provide useful and much needed information on the prevalence of use and intensities of digital technologies among different age groups, gender, socioeconomic groups in a comparative perspective. Moreover, we expect that the future analysis of the data collected will show that different types of digital technologies and intensities of use are associated with psychological well-being and loneliness. To conclude, these findings from the study are expected to bring in our understanding the role of digital technologies in affecting individual social and emotional connections during a crisis. ispartof: FRONTIERS IN SOCIOLOGY vol:5 ispartof: location:Switzerland status: published

Objectives: Against the background of emerging research interest in integrating Active Aging in long-term care policies, the study investigates the relationships between community environment and engagement in social activities (paid work, domestic care, participation in community and leisure activities) by older Chinese adults. Six indicators are derived from the economic, institutional, and sociodemographic environments of the communities under analysis. Method: The first wave of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) is used for empirical examinations. The sample includes respondents aged 50 years and above ( n = 6,290) from 307 communities. Random-intercept multilevel logistic models are employed. Results: Economic environment is positively linked to engagement in paid work and grandparental childcare, community activities, and leisure activities. However, the effects decreased after including the indicators for the institutional and sociodemographic environments. We found that older adults are more likely to engage in community activities and leisure activities in communities and with a higher percentage of migrant population. Discussion: To integrate Active Aging in the current long-term care policies in China, the study points out that residential community environment is crucial for older Chinese to enhance and sustain their involvement in family and communities before older adults rely on long-term care facilities. In particular, the relevance of institutional and sociodemographic environment provides policy makers to rethink about how to provide community-based long-term care.

We investigate the impacts of childhood conditions on productive aging in China. Productive aging is defined as engagement in working, caring, and socially productive activities (volunteering, informal helping, etc.). Two theoretical frameworks are examined: (1) the pathway model that emphasizes later life health and socioeconomic conditions are related to dis(advantages) starting from childhood, and (2) the latency model that illustrates childhood experiences directly affect productive engagement due to biomedical influences or values and preferences formed during childhood. The 2011, 2013 and 2014 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Studies (CHARLS) were used as these data sets provide both contemporaneous and retrospective information. The analytic sample consists of 5818 respondents aged 55 and above. We conduct multilevel analyses and path models to estimate the effects of childhood conditions, including family background (hukou - household registration - status and parents' education), neighborhood cohesion, subjective health and nutrition. Individual and family contemporaneous characteristics and clustered data structure were controlled for. The results largely support a pathway model in that childhood health and nutrition affect the likelihood of productive activities in later life through their influence on cognition and disabilities in old age. Moreover, family background and neighborhood cohesion are associated with productive activities via the effects through mid-life work, later life cognition, and disabilities. Results also provide some support for the latency model through the direct effect of neighborhood cohesion on socially productive activities, highlighting the importance of values formed in early life in shaping the motivations of productive engagement in later life. To conclude, we demonstrate that better childhood health, an advantaged family background, and values of helping others instilled in childhood affect older adults' productive engagement. Policies should be put in place to reduce socioeconomic disadvantages in childhood and also to cultivate cohesive community environments.

Lifelong learning has been regarded as an important factor of promoting active engagement in later life for researchers and policy makers. Most of the studies tend to illustrate old learners as a homogeneous and self-resilient group of people to engage in lifelong learning. Few studies address older learners’ social capital in affecting their decision of engagement and in sustaining their motivation. The study documented the existing social networks of older Singaporeans in lifelong learning programs and illustrated how social networks contributed their participation in learning. The mixed methods consist of in-depth interviews and two network instruments (Name Generator and Position Generator) based on 30 older Singaporeans (between 50 and 79 years old) who attended lifelong learning courses between 2016 and 2018. Interviews are transcribed and analyzed. The network instruments of are quantified and visualized. The findings show that older learners’ networks included a mixture of social ties from family and friends. Learners’ closeness with network members and their living arrangement with them influenced learners’ involvement in learning and future planning. Single respondents who had more non-kin members in the networks reported to be more active due to their weak ties. Overlapping networks among couple learners increase the spousal support for learning. Learners who had wider ranges of social resources are associated with their interest in learning activities. The study suggests that advocating lifelong learning needs to take older adults’ networks into considerations as networks represent the social forces that influence their decisions and motivations.

To provide an overview of the prevalence and profiles of grandparents providing childcare to grandchildren in 2 East Asian countries, China and South Korea, characterized by similar demographic developments and a shared cultural background but having very different contemporary institutional and socioeconomic circumstances.We apply logistic models to analyze pilot data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) and data from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (KLoSA; Wave 2). Our analytic sample comprises 772 Chinese respondents and 4,958 Korean respondents aged 45-79.The proportions of grandparents providing childcare to grandchildren differ considerably between China (58%) and South Korea (6%). Still, the determinants of grandparents' involvement in childcare (e.g., age, geographic proximity) are fairly similar in both countries. However, financial support from adult children to grandparents is found to be significant in China only, whereas Korean grandparents exhibit a greater propensity to care for their (employed) daughters' children than for their sons' children.Our analysis suggests that in South Korea, patrilineal considerations may begin to lose some of their importance in shaping downward functional solidarity between generations and that instead (grand-)children's actual needs, particularly those related to maternal employment, receive more attention. We find no such evidence in our Chinese sample.

The monolithic variable delay line with the loss compensation is presented. The operation of the delay line relies on changing the impedance of two identical reflection-loads at the through and coupled ports of the directional coupler. The reflection-load is the composite network, consisting of a passive parallel resonator, and a frequency-selective negative resistor. The negative resistor maintains the quality factor of the resonator to reduce the variation on the insertion-loss of the delay line with different time delay. The circuit simulations and the on-wafer measurements based on the CMOS 0.13-μm 1P8M technology validate the proposed circuit. The maximum time delay of the prototype is 196.2 pico-seconds at 24 GHz. The insertion-loss is 1.53 dB at 24 GHz, and the loss-variation is less than 1.3 dB.

Summary form only given, as follows. This paper reports a variable delay line (VDL) with a tuning range of the group delay (GD) higher than 87 ps in K-band. Our theoretical derivations show that the reflection load in the parallel form can make the reflection-type VDL achieve wider tuning range of the GD than those of the reflection load in the series form. A practical prototype of the VDL is fabricated by using CMOS 0.13 um 1P8M processes. The measured tuning range of the GD confirms the predictions given by the design equations.