Chinese WeChat users and their behavioural features: A case study based on the grounded theory

WeChat is a social medium for mobile phones developed by the Chinese company Tencent in 2011. By March 2018, there were one billion active WeChat users, making it the social software with the fastest development in China. Most Chinese WeChat users share WeChat Moments, establish WeChat groups, send WeChat red envelopes, and open WeChat stores on WeChat. This paper probes into the features of WeChat user behaviour in light of the Grounded Theory. The findings revealed four behavioural features: the expression of personality, the connection between individuals, group establishment by individuals, and the connection between individual and group. From the perspective of interpretivism, this study analysed such behaviour and found that WeChat users are individuals with different characters and that sharing WeChat Moments enables them to become unique individuals and express their personalities in certain social circle. In addition, people use WeChat Moments and WeChat red envelopes as a means to strengthen the connections among individuals. WeChat Store also develops via the connection between individuals. Different individuals can form WeChat groups according to different contexts, and individuals in different groups can have something in common. The connection between individual and group is also a social need. The virtual world established in WeChat can be called the “WeChat world”. This paper thus proposes that the behavioural feature of Chinese WeChat users is an “individual-oriented social connection”.