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Dwelling and Fleeting Encounters: Exploring Why People Use WeChat - A Mobile Instant Messenger

Authors:

Yang Wang,

Yao Li,

Jian TangAuthors Info & Claims

CHI EA '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 1543 - 1548

https://doi.org/10.1145/2702613.2732762

Published: 18 April 2015 Publication History

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Abstract

WeChat is a popular mobile instant messenger (MIM) in China with hundreds of millions of users. Recent literature suggested that MIMs can support users to "dwell" together with their close relationships by constantly exchanging tidbits of their lives. In this paper, we present an interview study to investigate why and how people use WeChat, particularly focusing on its three novel opportunistic social features: Shake, Drift Bottle, and Look Around. Drawing from 25 interviews, our results suggest that WeChat usage was motivated by a wide range of user needs. Notably, we found these social features supporting fleeting encounters among strangers. The seemingly conflicting practices of dwelling with close people and fleeting encounters with strangers vividly co-existed in the WeChat social space. These results suggest that MIMs as a rich design space for supporting divergent social interactions.

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Fan X(2023)Examining direct sales as a violation of friendship expectations on WeChatCogent Social Sciences10.1080/23311886.2023.22502079:2Online publication date: 21-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2023.2250207
Purnomo ASari ASusanti TRosyidah EMaulana F(2023)Lesson from bibliometric overview of WeChat researchTHE 2ND NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MATHEMATICS EDUCATION (NACOME) 2021: Mathematical Proof as a Tool for Learning Mathematics10.1063/5.0115715(080020)Online publication date: 2023
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Rahmanian EEsfidani M(2022)It Is Probably Fake but Let Us Share It! Role of Analytical Thinking, Overclaiming and Social Approval in Sharing Fake NewsJournal of Creative Communications10.1177/0973258622111646418:1(7-25)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2022
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Dwelling and Fleeting Encounters: Exploring Why People Use WeChat - A Mobile Instant Messenger
1. Human-centered computing

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Published In

CHI EA '15: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 2015

2546 pages

ISBN:9781450331463

DOI:10.1145/2702613

General Chairs:
Bo Begole
Huawei, USA
,
Jinwoo Kim
Yonsei University, Korea
,
Program Chairs:
Kori Inkpen
Microsoft Research, USA
,
Woontack Woo
KAIST, Korea

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 18 April 2015

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CHI '15

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SIGCHI

CHI '15: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

April 18 - 23, 2015

Seoul, Republic of Korea

Acceptance Rates

CHI EA '15 Paper Acceptance Rate 379 of 1,520 submissions, 25%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,164 of 23,696 submissions, 26%

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Cong TFang ZCostas R(2022)WeChat uptake of chinese scholarly journals: an analysis of CSSCI-indexed journalsScientometrics10.1007/s11192-022-04347-0127:12(7091-7110)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2022
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