The impact of smartphone use on rural residents’ environmental quality assessment: evidence from micro-level survey data in China

Background: The popularization of smartphones and the development of internet digitalization are profoundly reshaping the thinking patterns and behavioral choices of rural residents, while also exerting a significant impact on their environmental quality perception and wellbeing. However, existing studies have not fully clarified the interactive relationship between smartphone use and residents' environmental cognition, which provides an important entry point for this research. Methods: Based on micro-survey data from rural China, this study employs an empirical approach to examine the impact of smartphone use on rural residents' assessments of environmental quality, and innovatively explores its inherent mechanism of action. Conclusion and discussion: The research finds that smartphone use has a significant negative impact on rural residents' satisfaction with environmental quality, and this conclusion remains valid after multiple robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis shows that this impact exhibits obvious regional and group differences: compared with the central region, the negative effect is more moderate in the eastern and western regions; in contrast to ordinary villagers, the impact of smartphone use on the environmental quality satisfaction of rural Party members and cadres is not significant. Mechanism analysis reveals that smartphone use affects environmental satisfaction by changing rural residents' information acquisition channels and promoting the transformation of social capital forms. This study provides empirical evidence and theoretical reference for the rational use of digital tools to guide residents' environmental perception and support the construction of ecologically livable rural areas.