Understanding the effects of WeChat on perceived social capital and psychological well-being among Chinese international college students in Germany

Relationships between social networking sites use and subjective well-being--- a meta-analysis and meta-analytic structural equation model

During the last decade, the amount of research on the relationship between social networking sites (SNS) use and users' subjective well-being (SWB) has increased, leading to discrepancies regarding the results. Our review of the literature generated 73 independent samples and indicated that considerable inconsistent results may be attributed to different measurements of SNS use, moderation effects, or media response states and their effects. In this study, meta-analytic procedures were used to assess the strength of the relationships between SNS use indicators, perceived social support (PSS), self-esteem and SWB. The results showed that PSS and self-esteem had stronger effects on SWB than SNS use indicators. Furthermore, a meta-analytic structural equation model was conducted to assess the strength of the relationships between SNS use indicators, PSS, self-esteem, and SWB. The results did not support the proposition SNS use is associated with SWB. Compared with SNS use indicators, media response states such as self-esteem and PSS, had more effects on SWB.

Measuring users' psychological self-withdrawal on mobile social media: the development of a context dependent instrument

Introduction

MSM users have many concerns when disclosing information, such as role conflicts and privacy risks, which can result in nondisclosure. We call these negative feelings associated with MSM use "psychological self-withdrawal" (PSW).

Methods

Using a mixed-methods design, this study develops and validates an instrument for measuring PSW in the WeChat context, based on focus-group interviews (seven participants), one-on-one interviews (eight participants), and a survey of 1200 WeChat users.

Results

The result shows that PSW measure is a four-item instrument designed to measure PSW in the WeChat context. The results of two exploratory factor analysis pilot tests (n = 91 and n = 81) and a final confirmatory factor analysis test (n = 1200) indicate that the PSW measure has good internal consistency (α = 0.839), factorial validity, and a single-factor structure.

Discussion

The study defines PSW as "users' series of negative feelings when using WeChat" and develops and validates an PSW measurement, using focus groups, interviews, and a survey. A four-item PSW with acceptable reliability and validity was finally developed.

Does WeChat use intensity influence Chinese college students' mental health through social use of WeChat, entertainment use of WeChat, and bonding social capital?

Background

Previous research notes that the usage of WeChat is significantly related to individuals' mental health, but the underlying mechanism is still not completely discovered. The present study aimed to explore the sequential mediating roles of WeChat use motivations and bonding social capital on the effects of WeChat use intensity on mental health in Chinese college students.

Method

The present study adopted an online survey with a total of 487 Chinese college students. Correlation analysis and serial mediation analysis were measured by process regarding the hypothesis.

Results

The study presented findings indicating that WeChat use intensity had both direct and indirect impacts on the levels of life satisfaction and loneliness experienced by college students in China. Specifically, the utilization of WeChat for social motivation and entertainment motivation was found to have a suppressive effect on the relationship between the intensity of WeChat usage and individuals' life satisfaction. The association between the intensity of WeChat usage and mental health outcomes (life satisfaction and loneliness) was found to be mediated by bonding social capital. Furthermore, the association between the intensity of WeChat usage and mental health was found to be mediated by the sequential mediation effects of using WeChat for social motivation and bonding social capital, as well as the sequential mediation effects of using WeChat for entertainment motivation and bonding social capital.

Conclusion

Our findings provide implications for policymakers and social workers regarding renovating the perceptions of the relationships between WeChat use intensity and overall mental health. Specifically, practical online activities and services of SNSs are recommended to be designed for meeting social and recreational gratifications and boosting bonding social capital, which in turn promotes psychological wellbeing.

Amelioration and deterioration: Social network typologies and mental health among female domestic workers in China

Previous quantitative studies on the effects of social network types on mental health have obtained inconsistent or conflicting results, due to problems such as sample selection bias or crude measurement of variables. In this study, we avoided these problems by using appropriate statistical methodology to examine the effect of various forms of social network on the mental health of a sample of 987 Chinese female domestic workers. Thus, we measured social network types in terms of both network attributes (friend networks and family networks) and interaction channels (face-to-face, telephone, and WeChat/QQ channels, where the latter are two popular online messaging platforms in China), and used the coarsened exact matching method to obtain a balanced sample. The results showed that social network typologies had positive and negative effects on the mental health of this sample of domestic workers, as evidenced by (1) In terms of network attributes, family networks were associated with improved mental health and friend networks were associated with worsened mental health; (2) In terms of interaction channels, the significant amelioration in mental health from family networks came from face-to-face interactions, the significant deterioration in mental health from friends networks came from telephone interactions, and in terms of other interaction channels, family networks and friends networks had no significant effect on mental health. Robustness tests indicated that these conclusions are reliable. We discuss the possible mechanisms of which different types of social networks influence mental health.

Monitoring and Evaluating College Students' Mental Health Based on Big Data Analysis

Objectives: Our aim was to overcome the low evaluation accuracy of traditional random sampling methods for college students' mental health, and to use the values of big data of college students' social network behaviors in the prediction and evaluation of their mental health. Methods: We monitored and evaluated college students' mental health through big data analysis. After generating the samples of college students' social network behaviors, a mental health monitoring and evaluation model was established based on a support vector machine (SVM) and decision tree (DT). Then, the DT model was pruned, and input data of the model were optimized by genetic algorithm (GA). Results: The optimal parameter combination was derived for our model. The maximum number of iterations was 60; the smallest number of samples needed for reclassifying internal nodes was 6; the number of samples with the fewest leaf nodes was 30. The mental health scores of most students fell in the interval [0, 6] for unobvious symptoms of mental crisis. The binary classification results of several models were as follows. On anxiety, all models surpassed the accuracy of 60%, except the traditional SVM. The optimal model, ie, Model 5, achieved an accuracy of 86.7%. On depression, all models exceeded the accuracy of 60%, and the GA-optimized DT 5 realized an accuracy as high as 83.1%. On drooping spirit, the optimal model, ie, GA-optimized DT 5, reached an accuracy of 89.5%, which is comparable to that of the GA-optimized SVM 4. Conclusions: The characteristic dimensions extracted by GA are representative. The primary mental states of college students can be estimated quickly and accurately by our model with a low cost of data storage, through the feature analysis of social network behaviors.

A study on the embarrassment of senders who missend emojis with opposite meanings on social apps: taking WeChat as an example

With the increasing popularity of social apps, sending emojis has become a very common way of expressing one’s emotions. However, situations often arise when people send the wrong emoji by mistake, or sometimes even an emoji with an opposite meaning, which can cause embarrassment to the sender. Taking WeChat as an example, which is widely used in Chinese communities, this study summarizes 10 types of dialogue situations in which the meaning of an emoji is wrongly sent and 12 types of emotional components that are related to embarrassment. The purpose of this study was to analyze the extent to which the 12 emotional components that are associated with embarrassment actually explain what embarrassment is, as well as the different degrees of embarrassment among the different genders and age groups. The results showed that (1) among the emotional components of embarrassment, shame has the highest explanation degree for embarrassment; (2) males are more likely to be affected by embarrassment than females; and (3) users aged 18–25 and 26–30 years are more likely to be affected by embarrassment than those aged between 31 and 40 when they mistakenly send WeChat emojis. This study provides a reference value for their sustainable psychological impact on social app users.

The Relationship Between Social Capital and Psychological Well-Being: the Mediating Role of Internet Marketing

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between social capital and psychological well-being through perceived social support testing social media usage as a moderator. This study is based on social capital theory, which is centred on human interaction through social support to amplify the psychological well-being. Data was collected from 368 masters' students belonging to five different campuses. Using partial least squares structural equation modelling the results reveal that perceived social support significantly mediates the link between social capital and psychological well-being, and social media usage heightens the relationship between social capital and saws social support when it is used for a social cause. Findings of the study have some practical implications on how to diagnose and prevent factors that influence the feelings of isolation and loneliness in online interactions. The results are useful for digital media users and managers in higher education distance learning institutions since social interaction might indirectly benefit virtual university students' psychological well-being by increasing the perceived social support followed by social capital. Researchers agree that using social media may help to improve students' levels of life quality if educational administrators can develop novel applications that pay close attention to individuals' social and moral support. As such, social media designers could design more entertaining features to efficiently stimulate students and other users to adapt and meet their needs for social interactions. This research has established that a simple social conversation forum app should be launched by any virtual university to bring their students together where they could feel a sense of belonging and connectedness with a slice of social support. Moreover, teachers should also have a separate informal blog where they could communicate with their students each week to overcome the lack of face-to-face interaction. The administration of virtual universities has to increase the number of face-to-face gathering and seminars, i.e. it should be once in a semester rather than once in the entire study program. It will motivate the students by making references and relations with their peers. By spreading this knowledge, the students may get out of the state of isolation that will improve their performance. By demonstrating this in the higher education sector, virtual universities could reduce the service staff more intelligently through AI, and delay in response time (e.g., communication between student-to-student and student-to-teacher) could also be removed efficiently. Applying this model in virtual university settings could bring local and international students to obtain more significant social support, consequently leading to amplified psychological well-being. Keywords psychological well-being, social capital, internet marketing, social media usage, perceived social support online communities, e-learning, virtual engagement, social ties, online social interaction, loneliness, and isolation.

How can WeChat contribute to psychosocial benefits? Unpacking mechanisms underlying network size, social capital and life satisfaction among sojourners

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to systematically unpack whether and how WeChat network size is correlated with perceived social capital and life satisfaction among Chinese overseas students in Germany.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a web-based survey data collected from 218 sojourners, zero-order correlation analyses and structural equation modeling were separately implemented to tackle the complicated research questions.

Findings

Findings demonstrate that an individual’s WeChat network size significantly and directly influences bridging, bonding and maintained social capital. Importantly, a path model demonstrates that these distinct dimensions of social capital are all significant predictors of life satisfaction. Furthermore, the empirical evidence reveals that bridging, bonding and maintained social capital can mediate the association between network size and well-being outcome.

Research limitations/implications

Theoretically, the paper is an initial attempt contributing to the previous studies on estimating the influence of WeChat friendships on social capital and life satisfaction. Practically, these findings will contribute to a more nuanced understanding of effect of personal network characteristics derived from the dominant media interaction on social connectedness and life quality.

Originality/value

Despite WeChat is immensely prevalent in Mainland China, only few studies have concentrated on the role of WeChat network size in fostering individuals’ social and psychological development. The work provides unique evidence that number of friends on the emerging technology could indirectly benefit sojourners’ satisfaction with life through processes involving diverse categories of social capital in a trans-cultural environment.

Exploring information security education on social media use

Purpose

Based on the literature on information security (InfoSec) education and uses and gratifications theory, the purpose of this paper is to propose and test a research model to examine the impact of InfoSec education on social media usage.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors employed structural equation modeling to test the research model, with a survey data set of 293 valid subjects from a WeChat subscription about InfoSec education named secrecy view.

Findings

The results reveal the significant impacts of perceived content quality, perceived social influence and perceived entertainment on user satisfaction in the context of security education and social media. User satisfaction is significantly associated with user stickiness and security knowledge improvement. Additionally, the authors found that user’s security awareness moderated the effect of perceived entertainment on user satisfaction.

Research limitations/implications

Using a single sample might constrain the contributions of this study.

Practical implications

The authors suggest practical guidelines for InfoSec education on social media by enhancing perceived content quality. Moreover, due to diverse user attributes, the social media operators should recommend targeted content to different users.

Originality/value

This study contributes to studies on InfoSec education of social media usage and identifies factors that affect user satisfaction with social media. Furthermore, the study enriches the security education practices by uncovering differences in security awareness with regard to user satisfaction.

WeChat use is significantly correlated with college students' quality of friendships but not with perceived well-being

Although WeChat is currently one of the fastest growing social media in mainland China, many scholars and researchers are yet to systematically investigate the potential social and psychological consequences of the newly emerging online social network. Based on theory and previous studies, the principal purpose of this present study is to probe and understand whether and how the use of WeChat is related to individuals' friendship quality and psychological well-being. Research participants were a total of 508 college students who completed anonymous questionnaires gauging their WeChat usage behaviors, self-disclosure, friendship quality, and well-being. Using structural equation modeling, results demonstrate that the intensity of WeChat use is significantly correlated with college students' quality of friendships but not with perceived well-being. Moreover, the outcomes also reveal that students' friendship quality is a significant predictor of well-being. However, there is no relationship between online self-disclosure and friendship quality or well-being. Overall, these obtained findings of the empirical study could cast a much-needed light on the nuanced understanding of the certain social and technological affordances of WeChat and how it may ultimately impact individual's quality of life in the new media context.

Is mobile app a new political discussion platform? An empirical study of the effect of WeChat use on college students' political discussion and political efficacy

In the last couple of years, the increasing application and popularization of mobile app have dramatically transformed people’s daily political lives through offering innovative mechanisms for interpersonal communication. While a majority of past studies on WeChat have mainly focused on its characteristics, only few documents have unearthed the potential effect of using such emerging social media on facilitating political discussion and increasing political efficacy. Given those, this study adopted uses and gratifications approach to explore the possible relationships between gratifications-sought, the intensity of WeChat usage on mobile phones, online political discussion, and political efficacy among college students in China. An empirical survey with 282 WeChat users reveals that WeChat as a relatively new outlet of political information, which fosters online political discussion with others about government and politics. Contrary to the expectation, the intensity of WeChat usages is not helped to strengthen or enhance individual’s level of internal or external political efficacy. Furthermore, hierarchical regression analyses demonstrate that information needs and recognition needs are positive predictors of internal political efficacy. Overall, these obtained findings may shed more up-to-date insights on the meaningful role of the mobile-based communication technology in promoting citizens’ democratic engagement in a developing country.