Digital Fluency and Social Media Use: An Empirical Investigation of WeChat Use

Abstract

Social media has increasingly been used to deal with personal and professional issues. Past studies note that individuals of different digital fluency present distinct technology use behaviors. Yet, limited research has explored how digital fluency affects individuals’ motivations and the use of social media tools. Based on uses and gratifications theory and digital fluency literature, we develop a model to explore the relationship between digital fluency and social media use. We tested our model by analyzing 262 responses from WeChat users. Results show that digital natives (individuals of high digital fluency) tend to use WeChat to broaden social network while digital immigrants (individuals of low digital fluency) tend to enjoy WeChat use and to use WeChat to maintain ties with friends and fulfill their information needs. Our findings contribute to the literature by identifying the theoretical and practical roles of digital fluency in social media use.