A Typology of Social Networks and Its Relationship to Psychological Well-Being in Korean Adults

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to (a) develop an empirical typology of the social networks in Korean adults aged 18 years or older and (b) examine the relation of network types on depressive symptoms and satisfaction with life. Data for this study were drawn from the survey with 1,017 community-dwelling adults aged 18 years or older in South Korea representing three life stages: young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. Latent profile analysis was conducted based on eight social network-related variables: marital status, living arrangement, number of family confidants, number of friend confidants, frequency of contact with friends using phone or social media, frequency of participation in social groups, frequency of conversation with neighbors, and perceived closeness of family. The identified typologies were then regressed on depressive symptoms and satisfaction with life. A model with four network types was identified as being the most optimal, and the groups were labeled as: diverse-family, diverse-friend, solo-restricted, and coresident-restricted. Regression analyses showed that in comparison with the coresident-restricted group referent, diverse-friend and solo-restricted groups exhibited elevated levels of depressive symptoms; diverse-family and diverse-friend type had higher levels of satisfaction with life. Implications of the study findings were discussed in line with current research and intervention efforts.

Subjective Social Capital and Loneliness for the Elderly: The Moderator Role of Line and Facebook Use

“…Individuals with different marital statuses have different behavioral use of social media (Sum et al, 2008; Vergeer & Pelzer, 2009), leading to various degrees of outcomes of social capital and psychological well-being (Neves et al, 2018; Nieminen et al, 2013). In this study, participants were asked, “What is your current marital status?” and respondents chose one of the following answers: “single and never married,” “married,” “cohabitating,” “divorced or separated,” “widowed,” or “other.” The marital status was recoded to “married” and “other” dichotomously for the control because married individuals stand for more than half of the population for all the loneliness scale (see Tables 1 and 2), and was similar to the past study when calculating regression models (Park et al, 2020; Sum et al, 2008).…”

“…and respondents chose one of the following answers: "single and never married," "married," "cohabitating," "divorced or separated," "widowed," or "other." The marital status was recoded to "married" and "other" dichotomously for the control because married individuals stand for more than half of the population for all the loneliness scale (see Tables 1 and 2), and was similar to the past study when calculating regression models (Park et al, 2020;Sum et al, 2008).…”

Heterogeneity of Urban and Rural Areas in Association of Fringe Benefits and Depression: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…The expansion policy of Medicaid significantly increases the ability of patients with depression to seek medical services (7). A South Korean study found that diversified and solo-restricted groups had higher levels of depression (8). Higher levels of depression are associated with being unmarried, living alone and lack of family and friend networks (9).…”

Association between social network characteristics and depressive symptoms in South Korean adults: The moderating roles of age diversity and age difference

“…Social networks refer to the systems of social relationships in which individuals are connected to one another through different sets of interactions [4][5][6]. Abundant research has reported a link between social networks and mental health outcomes in both positive and negative ways [7,8], in middle-aged [9] or elderly people [10], in Western [11][12][13] or non-Western background [6,14,15], or patients with mental illnesses such as depression [3,[16][17][18], anxiety [19], psychosis [20], post-traumatic stress disorder [8,21,22], or dementia [14]. Some researchers have proposed that an inadequacy of social network quality or quantity may lead to loneliness, which is related to an elevated risk of depression or psychiatric symptoms [16,23,24].…”