With the rapid development of the Internet and mobile terminals, more and more people are using social networks. The psychological factors behind the use of social networks have also attracted more attention.
Looking at the research on the relationship between the use of social networks and psychological factors such as personality and sense of belonging at home and abroad, generally speaking, the number is not particularly large, especially in China. This is also related to the use of social networks that has only emerged in recent years. The problems and shortcomings of previous research are mainly reflected in the following two aspects:
(1) There are not many domestic studies on the relationship between the use of social networks and individual psychological traits, and most of them are about the motivation for using social networks. However, there is currently a lack of research on the relationship between social network use and personality traits such as extroversion and extroversion.
As an extension of offline social interaction, will the online performance of introverted and extroverted individuals be different from offline? This is also a research focus.
In addition, there is no domestic research on the relationship between social network use and sense of belonging. Individual sense of belonging has also been explored as a mediating variable between introversion and social network use.
(2) Foreign research on the use of social networks and psychological traits such as introversion and extroversion mainly focus on social tools such as , Facebook, and Twitter. These social tools cannot be used in China. The main social network tools in China are WeChat, Weibo, , etc. Different social tools also have different functions and user characteristics.
Many previous studies have found that introverts are more low-key in social activities than extroverts. And is this the same when this kind of social activity is moved online? Are there differences in the performance of users with different psychological characteristics in different types of social networks? The purpose of
's research is to explore the relationship between users' use of the "strong-tie" social network - WeChat Moments and the "weak-tie" social network - Weibo and introversion personality traits, and discuss the mediating effect of the sense of belonging.
1. Analysis of the relationship between gender and social network use
The impact of gender on the use of "strong relationship" social networks
In terms of the frequency of use of WeChat Moments, male college students are far smaller than female college students in terms of frequency of use and total duration of use every day. This proves the inference of Hypothesis 1: Female college students use WeChat Moments more intensively than male college students.
Women pay more attention to interpersonal relationships than men, and this interpersonal relationship is more reflected in strong relationships. Therefore, relationships have a greater impact on women than on men. Women pay more attention to human-computer relationships, especially strong relationships, which is also reflected in online social networks.
In terms of posting behavior in WeChat Moments, whether it is status updates related to self-presentation and posting photos, or interactions with others, females far outnumber males.
This shows that women prefer to present themselves in the circle of "acquaintances" than men, and they also prefer to interact with people who are closer to them. Whether it is the frequency of use or posting behavior, it is proved that women pay more attention to strong interpersonal relationships than men.
Gender affects the use of "weak tie" social networks
Regarding the frequency of Weibo use, male college students and female college students only differ in the total daily usage time, and this difference is reflected in the fact that the daily use time of female college students is much longer than that of male college students. There is no difference in frequency of use between male and female college students.
Men pay more attention to rights and status than women. Men may establish a larger but weakly connected "weak tie" network out of consideration of their "social capital" and status, and thus may be more active on Weibo.
This shows that although men may pay more attention to power and status, they do not show such needs in the use of social networks.
Women still spend more energy than men in "weak tie" social networks, but there is no significant difference between the two genders in frequency. This also shows that men may pay about the same amount of attention to "weak tie" networks as women.
However, men only briefly understand the movements of others in the "weak tie" network, while women pay more attention to them than men and therefore spend more time.
In terms of Weibo posting behavior, men and women only differ in how they post photos and videos. This shows that women may be more inclined to present themselves in weak relationship networks than men. But there were no significant differences between the sexes in how they interacted with others.
Therefore, there is not much difference in the publishing behavior between the sexes in the "weak tie network". Overall, gender has little impact on the use of weak-tie social networks. The difference between the sexes is mainly reflected in the time of use. This may be related to women's higher dynamic attention to their contacts in "weak tie networks."
2. Analysis of the relationship between extraversion and the use of social networks
Analysis of the relationship between extraversion and "strong relationship" social networks
From the perspective of the frequency of use of WeChat Moments, the negative correlation between extraversion and the frequency of use and the total duration of daily use are both significant. This shows that those who score high on the internal and external vector scale (more extroverted) use WeChat Moments less frequently and for less total time.
The more introverted a person is, the longer the frequency and total duration of use of WeChat Moments. This verifies the "poor people become rich" theory put forward by the Internet - for introverts, safer online social interaction is a powerful supplement to their lack of offline social interaction.
However, there is a positive correlation between the duration of a single use and extroversion and extroversion. This shows that although extroverts’ overall use of “strong-tie” social networks is not as strong as that of introverts, their single use time is relatively high.
We can speculate that the characteristics of extroverts’ use of WeChat Moments are that they use it less often but the duration of single use is longer; introverts use it more often but the duration of single use is lower.
In short, the final conclusion verifies the "poor people become rich" theory. Introverts use the "strong relationship" social network - WeChat Moments more intensively than extroverts, and the difference is very significant. Therefore, online social interaction is of great significance to introverts and can effectively supplement their lack of offline social interaction.
For extroverts, they may focus more on offline socializing and pay less attention to more virtual online socializing. The conclusion also proves that extroverts will not transfer their rich offline social resources to online as proposed by the "rich get richer" theory.
Analysis of the relationship between introversion and “weak” social networks
From the perspective of usage time and frequency, introverts use Weibo more frequently. There is no significant difference between extroverts and extroverts in total usage time, but extroverts have a higher single usage time.
In other words, introverts' use of "weak tie" networks is characterized by high frequency of use and short single use time, while extroverts are characterized by low use frequency and long single use time.
analyzed from the perspective of publishing behavior, introverts perform better in self-presentation behaviors such as uploading photos and updating status. There is no significant difference between introverts and introverts in interacting with others.
In short, introverts perform better whether they use "strong tie" or "weak tie" social networks. It is worth mentioning that in the strong tie network, introverts perform better in actively interacting with others, but this difference disappears in the weak tie network.
Extroverts do better in weak tie networks. Introverts do not necessarily pay less attention to weak tie networks than extroverts do. We can speculate that introverts prefer online socializing, while extroverts prefer offline, face-to-face social activities.
3. Analysis of the relationship between the sense of belonging and the use of social networks and the mediating effect
Analysis of the relationship between the sense of belonging and the use of social networks
The impact of the level of the sense of belonging on the use of social networks only exists in the strong tie network. In the weak tie network, no impact of the level of the sense of belonging on the usage behavior was found.
In the WeChat Moments, the sense of belonging is only positively correlated with the updated status and forwarding, positive comments and interaction in the posting behavior, but has nothing to do with the time and frequency of use.
This also shows that individuals with a high sense of belonging are more willing to express themselves in a strong relationship network and actively interact with others in their circle. Individuals with a low sense of belonging are less motivated to present themselves in their circle of friends and are less willing to actively interact with others online.
Analysis of the mediating effect of sense of belonging on introversion and social network use
First, we analyze WeChat Moments status updates and forwarding behaviors, and introverts perform better (the two show a negative correlation). There is also a significant negative correlation between introversion and sense of belonging, which shows that introverts tend to have a higher sense of belonging, while extroverts have a lower sense of belonging.
illustrates that in real life, although extroverts are exposed to more circles, in fact their sense of belonging to that circle is relatively low, and they often do not consider themselves to be members of that circle.
Although introverts have fewer circles of contact, they have a higher recognition of the circles they come into contact with, so introverts interact with members of their circles more frequently.
It can be seen from the multiple regression model that individuals with the highest intensity of status update and forwarding behaviors are introverts with a high sense of belonging, while those with the lowest intensity of status update and forwarding behaviors are extroverts with a low sense of belonging. Sense of belonging showed a complete mediating effect.
In short, introverts with a high sense of belonging are more willing to share their personal information in WeChat Moments.
Extroverts with a low sense of belonging behave differently online than they do offline. Then analyze the mediating effect of discussion-like sense of belonging on positive comments and interactive behavior. Similar to status updating, sense of belonging also fully mediated the effect in this behavior.
Introverts with a high sense of belonging are more willing to actively interact with others in WeChat Moments. Extroverts with a low sense of belonging are unwilling to interact with others in WeChat friend circles.
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