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What happens after young adults’ “friending” of parents? A qualitative study about mediated family communication and privacy management in China

The existing literature on “friending” parents on mobile social media has focused on the momentary decision of accepting the “friending” requests. In addition, a major body of research on privacy management online focuses on predicting privacy protection behaviors based on samples primarily from the United States. This in-depth qualitative study employs focus groups to explore how Chinese young people interact with their parents after accepting them as friends on WeChat, a popular mobile social application in China. Many participants reported privacy turbulence due to parental interference with young adults’ expression of their own values and behaviors on WeChat, which reflects the deep conflict between the collectivistic culture (the parental generation) and the individualistic culture (young adults) in contemporary Chinese society. This study also finds that a family’s offline communication is generally parallel to its online communication on mobile social media after young people’s friending of parents.