Insights into the psychology of mobile apps as the new home screen: Evidence from cutting-edge research in Chinese societies

The new home screen for a billion in the mobile sphere

There is “no place like home” according to the cliché. How about a home built with screens and supported by smart devices, mobile technology, and wireless internet connections? As a portal, will the home screen be the “go-to” place for comfort, for relaxation, and for recharging? As a homepage, will it be the gateway to treasure hunting in the digital sea of information? In the digital home based on an all-in-one mobile device, what are the far-reaching consequences of living on the new home screen?

In an era of saturated smart devices, such as tablets, iPads, and wearables, the home screens of mobile devices have become the new homepages for hundreds of millions of users. To the surprise of many information technology (IT) pundits, instant micro-messaging mobile apps built in Asia, such as WeChat, Line, and KaKao Talk, have become “homes” for over one billion subscribers in Chinese societies and around the world. By 2016, 800 million smartphone users had embraced WeChat, and 200 million had adopted Line.

More importantly, WeChat and Line provide one-stop platforms for online transactions, playing games, reading news, hailing rides, and banking, in addition to personal communication, social networking, posting, and reposting long-form messages (Wei, Huang, & Zheng, 2018). WeChat and Line represent innovations in creating, sharing, and distributing digital information that are tailored for millions of mobile devices, such as mobile news, mobile health, mobile marketing, networked micro-messages, content communities, mobile lifestyles, and mobile participation in civic life and politics (Wen & Wei, 2018; Wei, Lo, Chen, Xu, & Zhang, 2014). Massively popular in Chinese societies and elsewhere in Asia, these mobile apps function as new home screens, disrupting the status quo in telecommunications services by offering an alternative to long-distance calls. Moreover, they have threatened the role of state-run media.

Because of their simplicity and ease of access through smart phones, mobile apps appeal to users as their “sweet” digital home. In Chinese mega-cities, such as Shanghai, Taipei, and Beijing, millions of people Shua Ping (browsing their phone screens) or Hua Shouji (scrolling through the phone screen) on crowded buses, subways, and commuter trains. The industry research (Appier, 2016) has shown that the peak hours of using WeChat and Line are as follows: in the early morning (6.00–7.00 a.m.), primarily for reading and replying to posts from friends and family; at lunch break (11.00 a.m.–1.00 p.m.) for group chats and online shopping; and at prime time in the evening (7.00–10.00 p.m.) to order dinner, view TV shows, read posts from friends’ circles, and shop online. Young people have developed the habit of using WeChat or Line as the first thing they do when they wake up in the morning and the last thing they do before they go to sleep.

Hence, Shua Ping or Hua Shouji is the new single biggest daily habit of smart phone users who live on these mobile apps 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7). By embedding WeChat and Line in their daily routines, millions of users are dependent on these apps for staying connected, informed, and entertained, as well as for conducting vital activities. There is little doubt that the amount of time spent on the mobile home screen has surpassed that spent on other types of media, including viewing television. In this rapidly evolving app landscape, a vibrant mobile app culture has emerged in the world’s largest mobile-first region.

Issues to explore: social consequences, cultural evolution, and individual well-being

What does being “always-on” mean to users across Chinese society who are connected to their mobile screens 24/7? Are they likely to experience fatigue or “burnout” as the consequence of continuously chatting, reading, catching up, and posting on a screen that is less than six and a half inches wide? Moreover, how and under what circumstances do millions of users rely on WeChat or Line for emotional and social support? This mobile home screen usage has provided communication and media scholars with new issues to explore, such as the implications of mobile apps for social change, cultural innovations, and individual well-being in Chinese societies (Liu, Liu, & Wei 2014).

From a theoretical point of view, the widespread popularity of these mobile apps has resulted in transforming peer-to-peer communication into multilateral and multimedia communications on smart phones. How are users’ networks of social support mobilized, received, or breached? Furthermore, how will scholars theorize the far-reaching consequences of the 24/7 use of home screens for users’ personal relationships and quality of life?

It seems to us that mobile apps comprise a timely topic that merits focused scholarly attention and systematic empirical investigation. However, few studies have examined the psychology of mobile app usage although the research on mobile communication continues apace (Wei, 2013). We hope that the 2019 special issue of the Chinese Journal of Communication will contribute to filling this gap in the research on this area by addressing these pressing issues:

• At a time when WeChat and Line have become mainstream, and millions of users have embedded mobile apps in their everyday lives, what does it mean to be connected to the new home screen 24/7?

• What are the social implications of using mobile apps to stay connected for various demographic groups and social cohorts, such as millennials, empty nesters, senior citizens, and migrant workers?

• What are the psychological, cognitive, and social motives for developing attachments to mobile apps? What are the consequences of using mobile apps in terms of individual well-being, such as addiction, social disconnectedness, loneliness, anxiety, and fatigue from constantly viewing the home screen?

• How does the use of the new home screen affect information seeking and sharing behavior? When does the use of the new home screen become excessive and at what social cost? To what extent does the sense of being connected “anywhere, anytime” contribute to the excessive use of an always-on screen?

• How is information processed through the new home screen? How does the psychology of information-seeking via mobile apps affect the evaluation of public information and news that are sourced from mobile apps?

Articles in this issue: themes, insights, and evidence

The call for papers for inclusion in this special issue was well received. Twenty original manuscripts were received by 31 December 2017. After three rounds of rigorous blind reviewing by 40 peers in the US, Asia, and Europe, six papers were accepted because of their theoretical relevance, theoretical insight, and sound methodology.

The six studies included in this special issue address the adoption of mobile apps, the continuous connection to them, the development of a psychological state derived from and supported by permanent connectivity, and the broad social consequences of using mobile apps to stay connected permanently. Three subthemes emerged from the studies in this special issue: (1) understanding the embedding of apps and seeking connection 24/7; (2) theorizing users’ psychological states as a result of constant use; and (3) exploring the consequences of permanent connectivity.

New social technology has brought fundamental changes to people’s media behavior. One of the changes is reflected in being permanently online and permanently connected (POPC) (Vorderer et al., 2016). Using this framework, Lin’s article investigates Taiwanese college students’ use of mobile phones. She tested whether attachment styles could predict POPC behavior and well-being. With a representative sample of 921 students, her study found that Taiwanese students had a high level of POPC and that different attachment styles affected POPC. In addition, the high level of constant online behavior and resulting psychological state had both positive and negative effects on well-being. On one hand, POPC caused stress because of the non-stop connection; on the other hand, it led to the positive effects of users’ satisfaction and emotional well-being.

Using the framework of POPC, Zhou’s study of college students in Shanghai was focused on two mechanisms: fear of missing out (FOMO) and feeling of acceleration (FOA), which were found to influence the respondents’ use of WeChat and O2O (online-to-offline) life service apps. Zhou argued that mobile app usage is a case of being permanently online. That is, mobile app use is not simply an outcome based on users’ rational needs and goals. It also reflects the new form of being online in the mobile internet environment. Therefore, Zhou questioned the validity of functional approaches to defining and measuring online behaviors and the use of mobile social media. According to Zhou, “The clear division between media use and non-use tends to be missing as people are always staying online. Second, the status of staying online does not only mean the explicit information retrieval behavior such as searching information, reading news, commenting, chatting, or sending messages, but also means being there online and staying there with other people in the online world” (quoted from Zhou’s article in this issue). The study found that fear of missing out was a stronger predictor of being permanently online and using WeChat and O2O apps than the fear of acceleration was.

Shao et al.’s article explores the connections between the government’s use of social media apps for public services and users’ perceptions of the government’s performance. In theory, new media platforms hold the promise of improving governmental transparency and responsiveness. Shao et al. investigated the ways in which demographic variables were connected with the use of governmental social media apps for delivering services and it influenced perceptions and satisfaction with the government. They surveyed 1042 Beijing residents and found a rippling effect or the “linkage promotion” phenomenon. That is, if an individual used one type of government social media tool, he or she was likely to use other types of governmental social media tools. The results also indicated that age, education, economic status, and status of local residency were significantly correlated with the use of governmental social media apps for public services. In addition, information acquisition and the participatory use of these apps and services predicted perceived government transparency, responsiveness, and citizen satisfaction. The more that people used the public service function of these apps, the higher were their perceptions of government responsiveness.

Nan et al. explored various populations, especially disadvantaged populations, which use mobile apps. Their population sample included senior citizens from 50–80 years of age, many of whom lived alone (in China, the retirement ages of female workers and male workers are 50 years and 60 years respectively). Nan et al. examined the effects of the network characteristics of WeChat on the well-being of this population in relation to their use of this app. In their survey of seniors in 68 cities, the authors identified five types of social relationships that Chinese senior citizens had through WeChat: family; childhood friends; neighbors; people sharing the same interest; and work relations. They then investigated the connections of these types of social relationships with psychological well-being and subjective well-being. The results indicated that the size of the strong-tie network and the number of contacts that shared the same interests were positive predictors of well-being.

The results of their study showed that WeChat helped senior citizens form strong ties and expand their networks through shared interests, which benefitted their well-being. It is interesting that neighbors and work relationships had a negative influence on their well-being. The authors speculated that the surveillance function of WeChat and the violation of privacy might have caused such negative effects.

Xu and Liu’s article focuses on taxi drivers and the factors that contributed to the adoption of ride-sharing apps among this rarely studied population. The authors argued that the use and adoption of ride-sharing apps was critical to the livelihoods of professional taxi drivers in the mobile-driven sharing economy. The study found that three factors affected whether and when taxi drivers adopted ride-sharing apps: technology acceptance factors, including perceived usefulness, ease of use, and social norms; social stratification factors, such as digital literacy and technology access; and personality traits. The authors concluded that the propensity to adopt a new app was innate, inherited, and socially driven because the potential of the mobile app depended on the number of people who used it.

Zhang et al.’s article focuses on Chinese women and their motivations for using mobile devices to seek information about cancer. They also studied the ways in which this information-seeking behavior was linked to their intention to undergo mammography screening. This study examined the women’s use of the mobile device as a source of digital information and whether it prompted preventative behavior. Based on data collected from a sample of 1065 women in Nanjing, the authors found that perceived ease, perceived usefulness, and perceived self-efficacy of mobile media use predicted cancer information seeking through mobile media, which predicted Chinese women’s intention to undergo a mammography and consult a doctor.

In summary, the six studies in this special issue addressed some of the pressing issues that have emerged from the use of WeChat and Line. Based on data collected from various populations, including college students, senior citizens, women, and taxi drivers, the articles included here contribute to the mobile communication research by providing insights into the motivations that drive smart mobile users to build a digital habitat on Line or WeChat, utility and experience in the digital home, and the positive outcomes of “dwelling” on the new home screen in terms of psychological well-being.

Notes on contributors

Ran Wei, Ph.D. is Gonzales Brothers Professor of Journalism in the School of Journalism & Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, U.S.A. He is chair elected of the Communication and Technology (CAT) division of International Communication Association (ICA). His research interests include media effects, communication technology, and mobile communication.

Xun Liu, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist in the Department of Communication of Stanford University, U.S.A. Her research is centered on mobile communications, the social and psychological effects of social media and artificial intelligence systems, social media and well-being, online information and decision making in health contexts, and how the design of social robots impact psychological perceptions.

Acknowledgments

The publication of this issue would have been impossible without the firm support of the editors of the Chinese Journal of Communication, Dr Louis Leung and Dr Francis Lee. Their able assistants, Dr Daisy Cheng and Mr Randy Solis, helped us manage the reviewing process smoothly. They always promptly returned our email messages within 24 hours, which provided answers to questions and solutions to issues. We also would like to thank the 40 reviewers who provided 24 reviews. According to convention, they remain anonymous. However, we would like to acknowledge their contributions to this special issue through their graciousness, collegiality, patience, and most of all, their constructive comments to the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.