Social media is an important tool to help users publish and obtain information, establish interpersonal connections, and form virtual communities in virtual cyberspace. With the continuous development of information technology and communication technology, and the continuous popularization of mobile smart terminals, the influence of social media is expanding, and it has gradually grown into a major platform for users to create content, maintain relationships, share and search for information.
The relationship between people can be simply divided into strong ties and weak ties from the frequency of communication and interaction.
Strong ties are most likely to occur between individuals and core family members, close friends, work partners, business partners and major customers, which is manifested in more opportunities for interaction in life and work.
In contrast to strong ties, weak ties have a wider range. Weak ties refer to interpersonal ties that are weakly connected due to communication and contact, which are manifested in fewer interactions, weaker emotions, lower intimacy, and fewer and narrow reciprocal exchanges. Weak ties may occur with classmates, friends, relatives, friends, and neighbors, and even strong ties in the past may become weak ties due to the reduction of communication and interaction opportunities, mainly due to personal time, experience and communication opportunities. Weak ties play a very important role in social structure and are an effective bridge for transmitting information between different social clusters. The Internet provides opportunities for strangers who have never met before and are far apart geographically and socially to get to know each other and talk to each other. It is very suitable for the establishment and growth of “weak ties” and has a very positive significance for strengthening the information sharing spirit of the whole society. In terms of basic social network formation and maintenance, most social media platforms, while maintaining existing social relationships, will also create opportunities for strangers to establish weak ties in virtual space or form activity groups.
Some social media can attract different types of users in a wide range (such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.), but others will help people establish connections based on similarities in language, race, gender, religious beliefs and nationality. In addition, the differences in social media are also reflected in the extent to which they can absorb new information and communication tools (such as WeChat, which gradually supports information and communication functions such as text, voice, video sharing, instant calls, etc.), mainly including connectivity with mobile phones, sharing of pictures and videos, etc.