Affordance Diagnosis and Mediation: Understanding Digital Benefit Underuse Among Chinese Older Adults and Social Work Interventions

Digital benefits are central to older adults' welfare, yet allocated benefit quotas remain unredeemed worldwide. This single-case study examines Hangzhou's "Chongyangfen" electronic subsidy, drawing on interviews, field observation, administrative records, and focus groups. Although functional affordance was sustained, redemption remained low. Underuse emerged from three ruptures in the technology-user-situation relation: cognitive fog, emotional barrier, and situational suspension. These compound into cumulative underuse. The study reframes underuse as relational and processual breakdowns at key action junctures in digital benefit provision, and offers affordance mediation strategies that guide social workers to organize gerontological social work practice according to affordance diagnosis.