Mobile social applications can extend opportunities for social participation in later life, but access does not ensure that digitally mediated interaction feels meaningful, safe or self-directed. This qualitative study examined how 18 older adults in Bengbu, China, perceived system assistance encountered during mobile social communication. Semi-structured interviews explored participants’ communication routines, moments of uncertainty, experiences of system guidance and perceived boundaries between assistance and personal expression. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Four interrelated themes were developed: facilitative presence; boundary sensitivity; reassurance rather than control; and the preservation of agency and dignity. Participants valued prompts and suggestions when these reduced hesitation while remaining optional, modifiable and subordinate to their communicative intentions. Assistance became intrusive when it appeared to pre-empt decisions or speak on the user’s behalf. The article proposes boundary-sensitive facilitation (BSF) as a provisional interpretive lens for assistance that supports participation without displacing authorship. The study contributes a focused, experience-centred account of intelligent support in mobile social communication and derives three design commitments—subordination, optionality and respect. Because the findings are based on a small, purposively recruited sample and participants’ accounts rather than observation of a standardised AI system, BSF should be treated as an empirically informed proposition for further design and evaluation, not as a validated general theory.
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