TY - GEN
T1 - Dwelling and fleeting encounters
T2 - 33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2015
AU - Wang, Yang
AU - Li, Yao
AU - Tang, Jian
PY - 2015/4/18
Y1 - 2015/4/18
N2 - 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 otivated 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. Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
AB - 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 otivated 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. Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
KW - Fleeting interaction
KW - Mobile instant messenger
KW - Mobile phones
KW - WeChat
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84954213538&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84954213538&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2702613.2732762
DO - 10.1145/2702613.2732762
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84954213538
T3 - Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings
SP - 1543
EP - 1548
BT - CHI 2015 - Extended Abstracts Publication of the 33rd Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 18 April 2015 through 23 April 2015
ER -