Health information addiction and older adults’ health product purchases: the mediating role of perceived illness severity and social support

Health information addiction drives older adults' health product purchases by heightening perceived illness severity and increasing reliance on online social support. To mitigate this effect, interventions should focus on developing senior-centric digital platforms with enhanced accessibility to reduce addictive consumption patterns, creating moderated online health communities to provide reliable social support, and implementing digital health literacy programs to temper excessive perceptions of illness severity. Such strategies would empower older adults to make healthier purchase decisions within digital health ecosystems.