Research On Social Media Users' Lurking Mechanism From Role Perspective

As the increase of users' social connections on social media,their social circles become more and more diverse.When interacting with different social circles,users need to play different roles and have to assume corresponding role expectations and behavior norms.In the context of social media,users' social behaviors are no longer limited by time and space.All their social circles are juxtaposed together to form a mixed circle of friends,thus,users need to play multiple different roles at the same time.When interacting with multiple social circles simultaneously,users have to switch between their different social roles,thereby causing two problems.On the one hand,these role stresses will increase users'social burden;on the other hand,it will make it difficult to manage users' impression,thus,forcing users to choose social media "lurking" behavior.From the perspective of roles,this study explored how factors such as the diversity of social networks on social media affect users' lurking intention and how to mitigate their lurking mechinism.The main content includes the following three parts:First,based on the stimulus-organism-response framework,a model of the "lurking"mechanism of social media communication environment causing users' social media fatigue and role stresses was constructed.In this study,a total of 491 valid questionnaires were obtained from WeChat users using snowballing technology on sojump.com,and the structural equation model was validated by using Smartpls 3.0.Empirical results show that social network size and media capabilities affected users' perceived role conflict and role overload;role conflict and role overload affected users' social media fatigue experiences;users perceived role conflict,role overload and social media fatigue had positive influence on their lurking intention on social media.These provide new perspectives and insights into the interpretation of the social network diversity on social media.Secondly,based on self-discrepancy theory,a mechanism model of the influence of social network diversity on social media users' lurking intention was constructed from the perspective of role.In this study,we conducted a questionnaire survey on WeChat users by a professional data research company,and a total of 641 valid questionnaires were obtained.Smartpls 3.0 was used to verify the structural equational model.The results of empirical research show that role conflict and role overload had significant positive effects on users' social interaction anxiety and disappointment;social interaction anxiety and disappointment had significant positive effects on users'lurking intention.In addition,role overload had a significant positive moderating effect on the relationship between role conflict and disappointment,but its moderating effect on the relationship between role conflict and social interaction anxiety was not significant.These provide a new way of thinking and direction for lurking research.Thirdly,based on the two motivations of impression management and relationship maintenance,a trade-off model of social media users'impression management and relationship maintenance was proposed.Based on 641 valid questionnaires collected from WeChat users,Smartpls 3.0 was used to verify the structural equational model.The results of empirical research show that role conflict and role overload increased the dissatisfaction of user impression management,which lead to users' lurking intention.Community receptivity reduced the perception of impression management dissatisfaction and reduced the impact of role conflict on lurking intention.At the same time,community receptivity and tie strength increased users' social interaction needs,thus,reduced their lurking intention.In addition,strong ties directly reduced users'lurking intention.However,the moderating effect of community receptivity on the relationship between role overload and lurking intention was not significant,nor was the moderating effect of tie strength on the relationship between impression management dissatisfaction and lurking intention.These open a window to further explore how to reduce social media users' lurking behaviors.This paper has made the following important theoretical contributions to the literatures related to social media.(1)Starting from the perspective of the role toward social network diversity,this paper explored the influence mechanism of social media communication environment on users' lurking behavior,which proved that the larger the social network scale of users on social media is not the better.(2)From the perspective of impression managemen by introducing the self-discrepancy theory,this paper explains the influence mechanism of role stresses on users' lurking behavior,which points out that users' vulnerable emotions are the direct influence factors leading to their passive lurking behavior.(3)Starting with the social motivation and environmental cues of social media users,this paper explores the mitigation mechanism of social media users'lurking behavior.The results of this paper also provide important practical implications for the practice of social media.First,for social media providers,they should consider providing users with more intelligent context-based relationship management tools to help them effectively manage their growing number of social connections.Social media providers should limit the number of users'social contacts,in particular,they should avoid excessive and unnecessary push when pushing contacts for users.Second,for social media users,social relationship management is as important as the benefits of social interactions.Users should take the initiative to manage social relationships,effectively distinguish different types of social circles,and try to avoid publishing highly conflicting content publicly.In social interaction,users should not only pay attention to their own words and deeds,but also give more tolerance and acceptance to the behaviors of others.At last,this paper summarized the limitations and future prospects were also summarized.