Research On The Relationship Between College Students' WeChat Mini-program Game Use Behavior And Social Capital

With the great progress of information technology and the opening of social concepts,online games have gradually become the norm instead of “electronic heroin”in media reports.Nowadays,there are a variety of online games which can meet different needs of the audience.Although some parents still hold the view that online games would poison their children,in the eye of younger generation,online games is an indispensable part during leisure time and social life.This article studies the relationship between the use of We Chat Mini Program games and users' social capital,mainly using questionnaires and interviews.This paper used questionnaire to explore how use of We Chat Mini Programs and game motivations for players impact their bonding social capital,bridging social capital and maintained social capital.By sending questionnaires in We Chat,and used SPSS.23 to perform descriptive analysis,differentiation analysis and correlation analysis on collected data(N=194),this paper found that the intensity of use shows strong positive correlation with bonding social capital,bridging social capital,and maintained social capital.In conclusion,the more intensive We Chat mini-program games are used,the more social capitals player can get.Besides,three types of motivations including achievement,social,immersion all have significant positive impacts on the accumulation of social capital.In addition,the relationship between the use of We Chat Mini Program games and players' social capital is not a single linear relationship between “cause” and“effect”.Another question this study attempts to answer is how users' social capital affects the use of We Chat Mini Program games.This article uses interviews to supplement the study.This study has recruited 11 research subjects in We Chat moments.The interview results confirm that bonding social capital(strong ties in social relationships)get users started playing We Chat Mini Program games.Furthermore,game players prefer to choose strong ties group to play game with.Moreover,ranking list,links sharing,phenomenal games in We Chat Mini Program games provide users with new scenes to social with others in cyberspace.Through We Chat Mini Program games,users can increase a dynamic interaction with real-life friends.It can also remind users that they are connected to a bigger community.However,unlike traditional online games which can create a large social system independent of the game itself,We Chat Mini Program games cannot form new social network,so the impacts of We Chat Mini Program games on social capital can only achieve within the social network in We Chat.Meanwhile,We Chat Mini Program games have a large quantity but uneven quality.Some game developers excessively added advertisements to the game which could cause loss of users.