The Addiction Use of Wechat Among Young Adults in China During the Covid-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

During the Covid-19 pandemic, WeChat has gradually become an indispensable social media interaction tool in the life of Chinese people. More than 90 percent Chinese people would log into WeChat every day in the first-tier cities of China. Due to the rising number of WeChat users, it is worth investigating the addiction of WeChat among young adults and to what extent, WeChat is able to create addiction among Chinese young adults. It is also imperative to understand which aspects of WeChat that users are addicted to. This study examines the addiction of WeChat among young adults. In-depth interview is used in this study to understand ten WeChat users' addictive behaviour. By using the Time Perspective Theory, the findings indicate that Present Fatalistic orientations tend to have addiction behaviour while Present Hedonistic orientations also have chance to be addicted. The findings suggest user's addiction behaviour is related to the following four categories WeChat friendship/relationship addiction, WeChat activity addiction, WeChat information addiction, and miscellaneous WeChat addiction. As a conclusion, users' with Present Fatalistic orientations and Present Hedonistic orientations tend to have WeChat addiction behaviour and they are more likely to have WeChat friendship/relationship addiction and WeChat information addiction.