For younger people, the internet is often blamed for worsening mental health. For older Americans it seems to do the opposite. When high-speed fiber broadband arrived in their neighbourhoods, adults aged 50 and over reported 5.7% fewer depression symptoms.
The study is by Vikas PD Gawai, an applied economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The working paper was posted on SSRN on September 27, 2023, and also forms the first chapter of his 2024 doctoral dissertation.
Tracking fiber as it reached each neighbourhood
Gawai used the staggered arrival of fiber broadband in US census tracts from 2010 to 2018. He linked it with the Health and Retirement Study, a long-running national panel that follows the same older adults every two years.
The main outcome was the CES-D score, a widely used count of depression symptoms. Because fiber arrived in different places in different years, he could compare people before and after it came, against similar people still waiting, using recent difference-in-differences methods built for staggered rollouts.
Connection, not screen time, did the work
Broadband rollout reduced depression symptoms by 5.7%. The main channels were more social connectedness and fewer feelings of isolation and loneliness, through things like video calls with family and friends. Better health literacy and greater access to telehealth at nearby hospitals explained part of the effect. Gawai found no improvement in cognitive function.
The benefits were not spread evenly. Women and people living in rural areas gained the most. The dissertation version also reports significant effects for white respondents.
To give a sense of scale, Gawai compares the gain with known blows to older adults’ mental health. It equals about 20% of the harm from losing a job, 41% of the harm from a recession, and 14% of the harm from the unexpected death of a spouse.
The estimate is a mirror image of earlier research on college students, which found that the arrival of Facebook worsened mental health by a similar amount. Gawai argues that the same technology can affect different age groups in opposite ways, depending on how they use it.
What it means for broadband spending
The study measures the effect of broadband becoming available in a census tract, not of each person actually subscribing, so it captures the average effect of access. Gawai found no evidence that fiber changed whether people took medication for anxiety or depression.
The US government committed $42.45 billion to its Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment programme in June 2023. Gawai’s results suggest that money carries a mental health benefit for older adults that is not counted in the usual cost calculations.
Study Details:
- Title: Does High-Speed Internet Access Affect the Mental Health of Older Adults?
- Authors: Vikas PD Gawai
- Journal: University of Wisconsin-Madison working paper (SSRN)
- Publication Date: September 27, 2023
- DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4494307