The Research Of Relationship Between Life Style And Use Of Instant Messaging

Instant messaging is a new internet applied form, from the development trend and the number of users, which occupy an increasingly important position in the life of Internet users, particularly in the Internet Interpersonal Communication. However, this problem was not attached importance by the Chinese Communication field, and the focused research results are not too much. Therefore, this research will deeply study the relationship between life style and use of instant messaging with the qualitative and quantitative methods, and the emphases are how life style affects the behavior of interpersonal communication in IM and which life style factors significantly impact the interpersonal behavior in IM. Sequentially, this research will analyzes how the different life style groups use IM.The scale of life style eventually extracted eight factors, and the scale of IM interpersonal behavior eventually extracted six factors. Multivariate regression analysis results showed that general lifestyle factors don't directly affect the factors of IM interpersonal behavior and have not played a key role. But the former indirectly influence the latter so much.This research adopts Two-Step Cluster method, which uses the lifestyle factors and demographic variables, to group IM users, and comes into being four subgroups. Different lifestyle subgroups have different IM interpersonal behavior and basic using actions. The differences in the subgroups are more in keeping with their characteristics.Theoretical and methodological innovation is performed, enriching the theory of computer-mediated communication, and also provides a useful reference for the follow-up study.