| Social anxiety,which is common in real-life interactions,now occurs more frequently in online environments with the prevalence of social media.This study investigates the influence of online social anxiety on self-presentation on WeChat Moments among college students.Based on a literature review on online social anxiety and self-presentation,along with an analysis of the features of WeChat Moments and real-life considerations,this study proposed three research questions:(1)what is the level of college students’ online social anxiety and self-presentation features on WeChat Moments?(2)What is the relationship between the specific dimensions of online social anxiety among college students and the characteristics of their self-presentation on WeChat Moments?(3)How do college students use the "limiting and deleting" functions of WeChat Moments to achieve selective self-presentation under the influence of online social anxiety? The second research question was specifically developed into 12 hypotheses.The study employed a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews–The research collected data from 459 college students,which is analyzed by SPSS to address research questions 1 and 2 and to test the 12 research hypotheses;the in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the specific dimensions of online social anxiety among college students,the characteristics of their self-presentation on WeChat Moments and the use of WeChat Moments functions,in order to answer research question 3 and provide in-depth answers to research questions 1 and 2 by qualitative analysis.The results indicated that: 1.College students experience significant levels of online social anxiety in general and every specific dimension;they have a low frequency of self-presentation in WeChat Moments,with a high positivity but low honesty in self-presentation content.2.The specific dimensions of online social anxiety are significantly relative to their self-presentation features in WeChat Moments among college students–the higher the level of online social anxiety in each specific dimension is,the lower the frequency of self-presentation will be;the higher the level of content-sharing anxiety is,the lower the honesty but higher the positivity of self-presentation content will be;the higher the level of privacy concern anxiety is,the lower the honesty of self-presentation content will be;the higher the level of interaction anxiety is,the lower the honesty of self-presentation content will be;the higher the level of self-evaluation anxiety is,the higher the honesty but lower the positivity of self-presentation content will be.3.With the help of WeChat Moments’ functions,college students can achieve selective self-presentation by choosing the audience of self-presentation,maintaining distance from others,and eliminating past self-presentation content.Based on the research results,this study summarized the following trends: the problem of social anxiety is more complicated in online social environments;under the attack of online social anxiety,college students’ self-presentation on WeChat Moments shows a "defensive" trend;and the functions of social media platforms are gradually shaping the way of users’ online self-presentation. |
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