To study the digital needs, activities, and experiences of elderly users, evaluate the performance of age-friendly digital retrofit, and provide a path to bridge the digital divide among elderly users. Based on the user experience perspective, the age-friendly evaluation model of the “elder mode” APP was constructed, the index weights were determined based on the entropy weight method, and WeChat, Alipay, ZOA, and ZARA of the “elder mode” were selected as the research objects. We use questionnaires and in-depth interviews to collect user data and use a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method for empirical evaluation. The overall experience of elderly users on the four APPs is at the upper level of “generally satisfied,” among which the age-friendly level of “visual experience” and “behavioral experience” is high, while the level of “interaction experience” and “value experience” needs to be improved. In particular, attention needs to be paid to the retrofit of the fault-tolerant mechanism, toughness, and error correction of digital products. The paper proposes countermeasures in terms of enhancing the compatibility of interface elements of digital products, optimizing embedded interaction procedures, improving human-computer interaction options, enhancing fault tolerance of operations, and improving age-friendly continuity and thoroughness.

Background: Digital government has become a critical component of contemporary public governance, yet its relationship with residents’ mental health remains insufficiently examined. This study investigates whether digital government development is associated with residents’ mental health in China and how this association varies across urban and rural populations. Methods: We linked the 2020 and 2022 provincial Digital Government Development Indices with individual-level data from the 2021 and 2023 waves of the Chinese General Social Survey. Employing a one-period lagged matching strategy within a pooled cross-sectional design, we estimated the association using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models. Instrumental variable (IV) estimation was used to address potential endogeneity concerns, supplemented by robustness checks, mechanism analysis, and heterogeneity analysis. Results: Digital government development is positively and consistently associated with residents’ mental health. Mechanism analyses suggest that reduced health-related activity limitations and enhanced life happiness may serve as two potential transmission pathways. This positive association appears more stable among rural residents, although the statistical significance of the urban–rural difference should be interpreted cautiously. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that the association is more evident among individuals with higher human capital, fewer health constraints, and stronger capacity to use digital public services. Conclusion: Digital government may have implications beyond administrative efficiency by being linked to residents’ mental health, health capabilities, and psychological resources. To foster inclusive digital governance, policymakers should prioritize health service integration, digital accessibility, service usability, and offline support for vulnerable and structurally disadvantaged groups.

Background: Smart wearable devices are increasingly incorporated into later-life health management, but longitudinal evidence concerning device ownership and depressive symptoms remains limited. Objective: This study examined the within-person association between smart wearable device ownership and depressive symptoms among older adults in China, alongside concurrent psychosocial and behavioral characteristics and variation across digital and sociodemographic contexts. Methods: Data were drawn from the 2018, 2020, and 2023 waves of the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey. The baseline analytical sample comprised 30,255 person-year observations from 16,752 respondents. Two-way fixed-effects models were estimated using 22,536 observations from 9,033 repeatedly observed respondents, including 902 ownership switchers. Depressive symptoms were measured using a reverse-coded nine-item CES-D score. Additional analyses examined health perception, social adaptation, leisure participation, mobile phone proficiency, sociodemographic heterogeneity, sample selection, and attrition. Results: Smart wristband or smartwatch ownership was positively associated with the reverse-coded CES-D score within individuals ( β = 0.719, 95% CI [0.414, 1.024]), indicating fewer depressive symptoms during waves in which ownership was reported. The association remained positive across multiple sensitivity analyses. Ownership also covaried positively with health perception, social adaptation, and leisure participation, although their contemporaneous measurement precluded causal mediation claims. Contemporaneous analyses showed a more favorable ownership association at higher levels of self-rated mobile phone proficiency (linear interaction β = 1.890, p < .001), whereas prior-proficiency analyses produced weaker evidence. Heterogeneity was statistically supported for hukou origin, but not for gender, age, or education after multiplicity adjustment. Conclusions: Smart wearable device ownership was positively associated with fewer depressive symptoms within individuals, but the findings do not establish a causal effect. Digital capabilities and institutional context appear important for understanding heterogeneity in the ownership–depressive-symptom association. Clinical trial number: Not applicable.