Dwelling and Fleeting Encounters: Exploring Why People Use WeChat - A Mobile Instant Messenger.

WeChat is a popular mobile instant messenger (MIM) in China with hundreds of millions of users. Recent literature suggested that MIMs can support users to "dwell" together with their close relationships by constantly exchanging tidbits of their lives. In this paper, we present an interview study to investigate why and how people use WeChat, particularly focusing on its three novel opportunistic social features: Shake, Drift Bottle, and Look Around. Drawing from 25 interviews, our results suggest that WeChat usage was motivated by a wide range of user needs. Notably, we found these social features supporting fleeting encounters among strangers. The seemingly conflicting practices of dwelling with close people and fleeting encounters with strangers vividly co-existed in the WeChat social space. These results suggest that MIMs as a rich design space for supporting divergent social interactions.