Beyond the Broadband: Disentangling Loneliness and Digital Exclusion In Later-Life Psychological Distress

Background and Purpose

Psychological distress in older adulthood is shaped by both social disconnection and structural inequality, yet these influences are rarely examined comparatively. Loneliness is a well-established correlate of poor mental health among older adults, while digital exclusion is increasingly framed as a structural risk in an increasingly online society. Less is known about whether limited digital access has an independent association with later-life distress once loneliness is taken into account. This study examined whether loneliness and digital exclusion were independently associated with psychological distress among U.S. adults aged 65 and older and whether digital exclusion moderated the association between loneliness and distress.

Methods

This study used cross-sectional data from the 2024 National Health Interview Survey through IPUMS NHIS. The analytic sample included U.S. adults aged 65 and older with complete data on psychological distress, loneliness, home internet access, and covariates. Psychological distress was measured using the continuous Kessler-6 (K6) score. Loneliness was measured using a categorical frequency item. Digital exclusion was operationalized as lacking home internet access and treated as a structural proxy rather than a full measure of digital exclusion. Survey-weighted linear regression models were estimated in Stata to account for the NHIS complex sampling design. Primary models adjusted for age, sex, race and ethnicity, education, marital status, and poverty. Stricter models additionally adjusted for disability, self-rated health, and urban-rural residence. An exploratory interaction term tested whether lacking home internet access moderated the association between loneliness and psychological distress.

Results

The primary analytic model included 8,696 older adults, and the stricter model included 8,692. Loneliness showed a strong graded association with psychological distress. In weighted descriptive estimates, mean K6 distress rose monotonically from 0.98 among those who never felt lonely to 6.96 among those who always felt lonely. Intermediate loneliness categories followed the same pattern. In multivariable models, loneliness remained significantly associated with higher distress after adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics, disability, self-rated health, and urban-rural residence (overall p < .001). In contrast, lacking home internet access did not show a statistically significant independent association with psychological distress after adjustment (p > .05). The exploratory interaction between loneliness and lacking home internet access was also not statistically significant (p > .05), indicating that this hardware-level measure of digital access did not meaningfully alter the distress gradient across loneliness categories.

Conclusions and Implications

Among U.S. adults aged 65 and older, loneliness was a substantially more robust correlate of psychological distress than lacking home internet access. These findings suggest that structural digital access, as measured by home internet availability, may be too limited to explain or buffer later-life distress on its own. For social work research, practice, and policy, the results caution against assuming that broadband expansion alone will meaningfully reduce mental health vulnerability in older adulthood. Access-oriented interventions remain important, but efforts to reduce distress may need to more directly address loneliness, social disconnection, and meaningful social support. Given the cross-sectional design, findings should be interpreted as associative rather than causal.