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.

Objective: This study aims to analyze the spatial distribution and dynamic evolution of older adult service supply in Zhejiang Province from 2010 to 2019. Additionally, this research seeks to propose an optimized resource allocation strategy for older adult care services, promoting regional fairness and coordinated development.Methods: To evaluate the older adult service supply capacity, this research first constructed an evaluation index system based on the Chinese modernization development pattern. Then, an empirical analysis was carried out using a combination of the entropy-TOPSIS method, kernel density estimation, Markov chain analysis, Dagum Gini coefficient, and panel regression model.Results: The results show an overall upward trend in the supply and service capacity of older adult care in the whole province. However, the spatial distribution of older adult service supply capacity in Zhejiang Province still exhibits a gradient effect, even in the most recent year of 2019. Furthermore, the supply capacity of older adult services shifted to a higher level in the whole province, and regions with high supply capacity had a positive spillover effect on adjacent regions. The overall difference in the older adult service supply capacity of the province showed a decreasing trend. The level of economic development, urbanization rate, transportation capacity, the level of opening up, and the proportion of employees in the tertiary industry had a significant impact on the supply capacity and spatial difference of older adult services.Conclusion: From the findings, this study puts forth countermeasures and suggestions to optimize the spatial distribution of older adult care services. This includes giving full play to the regional spatial linkage effect, promoting new-type urbanization construction, upgrading the transportation network, and expanding the opening up of the industrial structure. By implementing these measures, a more equitable and coordinated older adult services system can be developed in Zhejiang Province.

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.