Understanding the Mechanism of Social Attachment Role in Social Media: A Qualitative Analysis.

Maosheng Yang,Yue Zhang,Wensong Zhang,Athapol Ruangkanjanases

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.720880

Maosheng Yang, Yue Zhang + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.720880

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Abstract

Qualitative research method was used to explore the formation and development of the attachment relationship between users and social media in the process of using social media. Based on the attachment theory, this study selected three representative social media platforms, namely, TikTok, WeChat, and MicroBlog, as theoretical samples, and this study adopted NVivo12.0 to root, theorize, and construct the original data. Research shows that users are stimulated by co-creation value to stimulate changes in their psychological needs and self-expression, leading to the formation of social attachment. Among them, user participation is a prerequisite for driving the occurrence of co-creation value, creating a continuous-use scenario for the attachment relationship between individuals and social media. Further, psychological needs and self-expression play mediating roles between co-creation of value and social attachment and promote the occurrence of personal belonging to software platforms. The findings of this research better our understandings about the mechanism of developing social attachment from continuous use of social media and offer practical implications for commercial uses of social media platforms.

Highlights

The attachment relationship between users and social media has attracted deeply from practitioners and scholars
Revealing the Mechanism of the Attachment Relationship Based on the grounded theory as a guide, this research adopts the paradigm of qualitative research, to find the mechanism model of user behavior of social software in China
It points out that user participation creates usage scenarios for the interaction between individuals and social software, in which co-creation value is formed driven by user participation; co-creation value elements act as stimuli to stimulate the user emotional and cognitive state of social software, so as to stimulate psychological needs and self-expression of users, and promote and strengthen sense of belonging of users to social software

Summary

Introduction

The attachment relationship between users and social media has attracted deeply from practitioners and scholars. Social media has nowadays played a decisive role in human progress and daily life of people. The low conversion cost of social media during the interaction process poses a challenge for users to attach to the continuous use of social media and hinders the positive impact and progress of social media on human development. The insight into the formation mechanism of this attachment process is very important for the continuous development of social media platforms (Cao et al, 1987; Teo et al, 2018). Existing research is still limited in exploring the attachment relationship between users and social media. Deep analysis of the attachment relationship between users and social media

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