Data from: Excessive use of WeChat, social interaction and locus of control among college students in China

In China, the number of college students using mobile phone based
messaging and social networking applications like WeChat is increasing
rapidly. However, there has been minimal research into the addictive
nature of these applications and the psychological characteristics
associate with their excessive use. There is also no published scale
available for assessing excessive use of WeChat and similar applications.
In the current study, we collected data from 1,245 college students in
China (715 females) and developed the WeChat Excessive Use Scale (WEUS).
We then assessed the relationship between excessive use of WeChat and
excessive use of a social networking application-Weibo, problematic use of
mobile phones, external locus of control, and social interaction skills.
Our 10-item scale featured three factors, namely- “mood modification,”
“salience” and ‘‘conflict”- critical factors in assessing different forms
of addiction. The WEUS was found to be a reliable instrument in assessing
excessive use of WeChat as it showed good internal consistency and
correlated with other measures of problematic use social networking and
mobile phone addiction. Our results showed that excessive users of WeChat
are more likely to excessively use Weibo than they are to problematically
use mobile phones. Our study also showed that greater excessive use of
WeChat is associated with higher external locus of control and greater
online social interaction skills. These results reveal that WeChat has
unique and strong appeal among college students in China. Further,
practitioners should consider dealing with malleable factors like locus of
control and real life social skills in treating people with problematic
messaging and social networking.