Internet use is significantly and positively associated with exercise participation among older adults in China (OR = 1.36), primarily through direct mechanisms not captured by learning-oriented empowerment or entertainment-oriented instant gratification pathways.
Internet use was significantly and positively associated with exercise participation among older adults in China.
The association between internet use and exercise frequency and intensity was heterogeneous rather than uniformly positive.
Neither learning-oriented health empowerment nor entertainment-oriented instant gratification served as a statistically significant mediating pathway between internet use and exercise participation.
Doubly robust treatment-effect estimators confirmed a meaningful positive association between internet use and exercise participation after addressing endogeneity.
Results were robust across multiple sensitivity analyses including alternative variable definitions, estimation methods, and subsample analyses.
The authors concluded that digital inclusion policies should be integrated into broader public health strategies for active aging, with emphasis on purposeful online engagement.
This research suggests that older adults in China who use the internet are more likely to exercise than those who do not. Using data from nearly 7,000 Chinese adults aged 60 and older, researchers found that internet users were about 36% more likely to participate in exercise. Even after using advanced statistical methods to account for the possibility that healthier people are simply more likely to use the internet in the first place, the positive association held up — internet users were between 11 and 15 percentage points more likely to exercise than non-users. Interestingly, the study tested two common explanations for why the internet might encourage exercise: that people learn health information online (health empowerment) and that online entertainment might substitute for or motivate physical activity (instant gratification). Neither of these pathways explained the association in any meaningful statistical way — together they accounted for less than 5% of the total effect, and neither was statistically significant. This means the internet's connection to exercise participation appears to work through other, less obvious mechanisms that were not directly measured in this study. The findings have practical relevance for public health policy in aging societies. This research suggests that simply getting more older adults online — digital inclusion — may have benefits for physical activity levels, but that the type of online engagement matters. Policies encouraging purposeful, active use of the internet (rather than passive scrolling or entertainment consumption) may be more effective at promoting healthy aging. The authors suggest that digital inclusion efforts should be woven into broader strategies for keeping older populations physically active.
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Upload Your LabsLi X, Zhan B. (2026). Internet use and physical activity among older adults in China: a multi-dimensional analysis with endogeneity mitigation.. Frontiers in public health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1862565