The Impact Of WeChat Communication On The Interpersonal Relationship

WeChat, the leader of Chinese IM services, has been chosen as research object of this paper. At the angle of self-presentation, types of interpersonal relationships and communication context, this paper adopts questionnaire survey and in-depth interview methods to study the impacts of We Chat communication on the interpersonal relationship and more focus on the negative ones.The first part gives an brief introduction of We Chat’s development and explains the features of its communication in detail. At the interpersonal relationship level, the second part of this paper classifies interpersonal relationship on We Chat into four groups, such as acquaintance, daily interaction, working partners and strangers. Three Impact factors on We Chat users’ interpersonal relationship and comparison with real-world and network interpersonal relationship are also discussed in this chapter as well. Combined with empirical research, the third part of this paper is the specific analysis of impacts of We Chat communication on the interpersonal relationship in terms of users’ self-presentation, extension and maintenance of their interpersonal relationship, such as in the aspect of users’ self-presentation, impacts on self open areas, self-knowledge, self-disclosure and self-image exist; in the aspect of interpersonal relationship extension, We Chat communication may lead to mandatory relationship construction, vulgarization of relationship and limitation of relationship extension; in terms of interpersonal relationship maintenance, communication through We Chat helps its users to strengthen and reconstruct their existing social network, and to some extent, it may also result in interaction inertia, expectancy violation effect, intimacy disorder in clicks-and-mortar communication environment of We Chat. In addition to research summary and further reflection, The last part of this paper clarifies the limitations, deficiencies and prospect of future study.