Identifying linguistic differences between empty‐nest and non‐empty‐nest youth on Weibo

Recently, empty‐nest (EN) youth has aroused extensive concern of the Chinese public. This phenomenon is closely related with the social system, reflecting the current social changes in China. While advancing the urbanization, the EN youth has suffered from the homesickness and pressures from work, communication and housing. Therefore, the mental state and emotional expression of this group should be given enough attention. However, most of the current research is based on questionnaires or interviews, which are unable to provide direct and reliable evidence of emotional expression differences between EN and non‐empty‐nest (NEN) youth. By analyzing the microblog posts on Weibo, this paper aims to investigate the linguistic differences in emotional expression between EN and NEN youth. This study selected 5,040 EN and 8,000 NEN youths from 1 million active Weibo users. We conducted emotional analysis on original posts based on affective lexicon constructed by Dalian University of Technology, and compared the differences in emotional expression by independent sample t test. The results indicate that there are no practical significant differences between EN and NEN youth in their Weibo expressions; the results of two‐way ANOVA indicate that there are significant differences in both gender and region (Qinling‐Huaihe as the geographical boundary). This paper found that the EN state may not lead youth to have practical significant differences in emotional expression; EN status has different effects on youth of different genders and regions; Male EN and northern EN youths are more inclined to express inner emotions in online social networks than other youth.