Building the skill of happiness: WeChat’s role in the promotion of mental health in China

Abstract

Abstract China is in the midst of a “psy-boom” as the use of psychological services and interest in psychology and psychologically informed personal development tools are seeing a meteoric rise. One of the key drivers of this trend has been the innovative use of social media tools like WeChat by psychological service providers to both attract consumers and deliver products. This paper argues that online psychological service provision via WeChat constitutes a very literal “technology of the self” in the way that the content published explicitly tells consumers that a better, healthier and happier self is within reach. For a fee these companies help provide people with psychological toolkits that they use to shape their understanding of the ways they can heal themselves and others.