Effects of Older Adults' Subjective Health Literacy on Health-Oriented Usage Intention of WeChat: Based on Social Media Affordances

Given the aging population and the rapid development of digital society, concerns about promoting older adults' health literacy are increasing. The broad impact of social media can play a vital role in health empowerment for older adults. Drawing upon the perspectives of socialmedia affordances, we constructed a research model that integrates four affordance types, searching, meta-voicing, recommendation, and communication, to identify the effects of affordances and older adults' subjective health literacy that contribute to their health-oriented usage intention of WeChat. Online survey data from 163 older adults (above 55 years) were collected and analyzed using partial least squares-structural equation modeling. This variable of subjective health literacy was divided into three dimensions: health knowledge, health management, and health skills. The results indicated that older adults' subjective health literacy has significant positive effects on their health-oriented usage intention ofWeChat. We also found that meta-voicing affordance, recommendation affordance, and communication affordance have positive influences on health knowledge and health management, and searching affordance, recommendation affordance, and communication affordance have positive effects on health skills. This study enriched the understanding of elders" subjective health literacy on their health-oriented usage intention of social media and contributed to the literature on health-related ICT usage targets of older adults.