Personal Network Size and Social Accompaniment: Protective or Risk Factor for Momentary Loneliness, and for Whom?

Abstract

Personal networks yield important health benefits for individuals, in part by providing more opportunities to be in the company of others throughout daily life. Social accompaniment is generally believed to protect against momentary feelings of loneliness, although this hypothesis remains understudied. We examine how personal network size shapes older adults’ experiences of momentary loneliness and whether this association varies by momentary social accompaniment. We use three waves of ecological momentary assessments (EMA; N = 12,359) and personal network data from 343 older adults in the Chicago Health and Activity Space in Real-Time study. Older adults with large personal networks experienced more intense momentary loneliness compared with those with smaller social networks when they were momentarily alone. This association was more pronounced among men. We discuss how research approaches that bridge global and momentary measures of social connectedness can reveal important nuances of our understanding of how interpersonal factors influence later-life well-being over time.

Stand by Me: Social Ties and Health in Real Time

“… 1 Results were consistent when using an alternative coding of social accompaniment (any) that coded respondents who reported only being with a pet as being with “nobody” (Goldman and Compernolle 2023). …”

“…Respondents could select multiple activities. We create two dichotomous variables to indicate, separately, (1) whether the respondent was engaging in a recreational or social activity and (2) whether the 1 Results were consistent when using an alternative coding of social accompaniment (any) that coded respondents who reported only being with a pet as being with "nobody" (Goldman and Compernolle 2023).…”

“…For example, recent findings indicate that global social support moderates the effects of momentary solitude on negative affect (Fang et al 2022), as do higher quality social relationships (Pauly et al 2018). However, other work using the CHART data shows that older adults who have larger social networks report higher levels of momentary loneliness when alone compared with individuals with smaller social networks (Goldman and Compernolle 2023). Collectively, these studies highlight the advantage of the EMA approach for assessing how older adults’ health is shaped by social life across different contexts and time scales (Smyth et al 2017).…”

Ecological Momentary Assessments in Sociology

“…A recent cross-sectional analysis found that when older adults were outside their homes and or accompanied by other people, they were significantly less likely to experience momentary feelings of loneliness compared to when they were alone at home (Compernolle et al 2021). 3 Further analyses of the CHART-which leveraged data on participant's personal social networks-revealed that social accompaniment is more protective of momentary loneliness for older adults who have larger personal networks than it is for those with smaller personal networks (Goldman and Compernolle 2023).…”