Impact of Social Media on User Engagement through the Lens of Media System Dependency Theory

Social media has penetrated into our lives, triggering engagement both online and offline. However, the current research is limited to the exploration of online engagement, so this study expands the scope of research to offline, and explores the impact of media dependence on online and offline communication based on media-system dependency. This study adopts the method of questionnaire and selects three topics of clothing, food, and sports events to provide data support. The results of the study show that similar to common topics such as clothing and food, online engagement has no effect on offline communication, and for topics of sports events with certain interest orientation, media dependence will not affect its offline communication.