A survey of British office workers found that 70% of Millennials feel anxious when their phone rings. A study in the United States among people aged 22 to 37 also confirmed that 81% of people in this age group feel anxious about phone ringing. Why do people who have grown up in the online world fear phone calls?
This kind of uneasiness reflects the real living mood of people in the Internet era. Think about it, except for functional calls such as takeout and express delivery, how long has it been since you answered the phone? With the popularity of online social networking such as WeChat, phone calls are no longer the first choice for people to connect with others. Online chats are highly editable, whereas phone calls are unpredictable and impossible to polish, and you can't undo what you said wrong. The fear of a ringing phone call may essentially be about avoiding a sense of loss of control.
Similar to the fear of phone calls, there is also the fear of phone calls on WeChat. These are all modern maladies that have “emerged” in recent years. They remind us to rethink whether it is possible to rediscover the harmonious relationship between people and things in today's increasingly prosperous material life. In "The Depths of Everyday Life", Wang Xiaowei, associate professor at the School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China, magnifies the "technical objects" related to life, focuses on these ordinary phenomena based on daily feelings, and uses this to find "the path to a good life". " of the trail.
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 11 of the book with the permission of the publisher. It has been shortened from the original text due to length reasons.
"The Depths of Everyday Life", written by Wang Xiaowei, Experience the City-State | CITIC Publishing House, November 2023.
WeChat misophonia
WeChat not only changes our lives, it also changes personalities. Especially among the younger generation, everyone suffers from a strange misophonia. Similar to rabies, patients are unwilling to hear other people's voices. They feel anxious when they hear voices and have to rub their hands. Not long ago, when people met, they usually had to say hello and convey information through sound. Communication was basically through sound. When I was a kid, there was constant buzz in public toilets. Faced with embarrassment and dirty conditions, people never gave up using voice to communicate their thoughts, and the sound of defecation never made people cringe. At that time, Chinese people could openly defecate and chat at the same time, but they were not confused about the difference like some netizens did.
When the "post-80s" and "post-90s" went to college, text messages gradually replaced phone calls. Phone calls became more and more formal, with only important matters being called and less important matters being resolved via text messages. As a result, people gradually began to avoid talking. When you send a text message, you don’t expect the other party to reply immediately. You also have more time to formulate a reply after receiving the text message. Calling requires both parties to respond at the same point in time, and the conversation will be more sincere because there is less time to think and prepare words. The extensive use of text messages for communication is a new situation that started to appear around 2003. People nowadays are obviously more afraid of voice. If you send a voice message to someone on WeChat, the other person may be offended.
Misophonia is a typical neurasthenia. It stands to reason that only intellectuals are susceptible to it. Nowadays, slightly younger people have this problem. I feel that this neurosis does not make people more polite. The accessibility of WeChat makes people very rude. The transmission of voice itself is a solemn thing. When making a phone call, you usually first ask the other party if it is convenient to answer the call. In WeChat, you are not so polite. You can send a message to the other party anytime and anywhere. In the physical world, if you want to say a few words to someone, you need to take the initiative to walk over and see how he/she is doing. If the other person is busy, it is usually not convenient to interrupt. But WeChat doesn’t need to consider the other person’s situation at all. You often receive WeChat messages during meetings, lectures, and when you are concentrating on thinking and writing. You will also be suddenly pulled into a group and bombarded with countless messages.
As soon as you push it through WeChat, the other party will have to read it. Although it is said that a timely reply is not required, in fact, after everyone sends a letter, they expect the other party to reply immediately. If the other party delays replying for 10 minutes, 20 minutes or more, this is basically a silent rejection.The other party showed obvious indifference, was unwilling to participate in the matter you were promoting, and did not want to interact with you. Everyone sees it this way, and people who receive WeChat messages will also feel that they have an obligation to reply immediately, otherwise they will appear very rude. In this way, the inquirer has higher power, while the recipient and reader have no initiative to a large extent and are in a relatively weak state.
Stupid evidence of crime
There is a big difference between WeChat and SMS. Text messages are one-to-one communication and cannot be communicated with multiple people at the same time, nor can they be seen by others. Communication on WeChat always happens witnessed. Likes on WeChat, comments in Moments, and all discussions in group chats are often public. In other words, WeChat communication often occurs under the gaze of everyone. It disguises itself as a public space and creates a virtual world parallel to the physical world. Many people seem to be connected to each other in this virtual world. In physical time and space, we usually gather together in a place. Only a few people know what happens in this place, and these people come together because they have a common task.
WeChat is different. WeChat is displayed to many people, and even people who have nothing to do with the conversation may join in and watch. This makes WeChat communication like a landscape. For example, in a large group of 500 people, gossip from a certain academic circle suddenly emerged, saying that a well-known young Rawlsian scholar did not understand Rawls at all. Many people were watching, and you spoke to me as if you knew Rawls very well. Those who were cautious said nothing, but it was almost certain that they were hiding behind and laughing to themselves, and even moved small benches, ready to watch the show.
Pure academic debates are not suitable for publication in Moments or groups, only for publication in magazines. Not all people in the group are experts, nor can rapid communication be too in-depth by citing classic examples. Just like performing Kun Opera on the street is not as good as performing monkey tricks. Discussing in a group whether someone understands Rawls or not is, in my opinion, an academic monkey game. People want to argue, slander, be cunning and quick-talking, and none of it has anything to do with academics. The wait-and-see culture brought about by WeChat makes people look very despicable. I found that as long as there are enough people in a group, there will definitely be monsters, some people will use their butts as their heads, and they will always be unreasonable in their stance.
WeChat not only amplifies stupidity, but also makes everything traceable and turns it into evidence of crime. In everyday conversation, conversation can easily get lost. A conversation begins, a conversation ends, and then it lingers in the memory for a little while, then quickly fades away. WeChat is different, it records everything you write. Because words and pictures can only occupy a limited space, everything is traceable and becomes a kind of evidence, existing there.
When a problem occurs, these records can be presented as evidence at any time. This creates a kind of information coercion, and WeChat communication requires careful consideration. Compared with natural communication, everyone must be very cautious when speaking on WeChat, which leads some people to give up on WeChat communication. For work that requires certain confidentiality, WeChat cannot be used. During the epidemic, the management of many universities completely gave up using WeChat group communication and returned to walkie-talkies. No matter how powerful their official authority is, the school leaders still have to hold up a walkie-talkie and speak "wow-wow-wow-wow". The whole school has the atmosphere of a police movie, and the teachers feel like informants.
The vulgarization of sharing
The above-mentioned are not the biggest damage WeChat has done to life. The biggest damage is the deconstruction of sharing itself. The most common way to praise WeChat is that it can promote sharing. WeChat is called a “social network”, and social networks certainly exist for sharing. A typical sharing situation is to go to a high-end restaurant to eat, and then post it online, and everyone will like it. This is called sharing. Checking in, liking, promoting, showing off, these all become sharing.
These activities are not real sharing as mentioned in the past. Whether it is related to sharing is suspicious. This kind of "sharing" does not make people more friendly and society more harmonious.When I post what I have eaten online or what awards my children have won, it is often to invite others to like it, to promote myself, and to show off. The fastest way to make enemies in the academic community is to repost your articles frequently. It can be seen that posting good food, wine and self-achievements on Moments often leads to jealousy. It doesn't matter if you do it miserably, it will be considered "Versailles". In short, when analyzing the interactions in the circle of friends, a healthy mentality is rare.
WeChat sharing is not conducive to social harmony and human connection, and even "loving family members" are not immune. I often think showing off might not really be sharing. It stands to reason that true sharing is when I give a part of myself to you, but my share will not become less, on the contrary, it will become more. It is said that Bernard Shaw said, "You have an apple, I have an apple, we exchange each other, each person still has an apple; you have a thought, I have a thought, we exchange each other, each person can have two thoughts." It can be seen that , ideas prosper through sharing, and sharing increases, not decreases.
Stills from the movie "The Social Network" (2010). The original meaning of
sharing is to cut and discard. It is not about making you envy me, but about sharing some of my things with you so that you can gain from sharing, form a solid interpersonal relationship and a sense of community, and then gain more. In other words, the essence of sharing is "being together." Nicholas John, a scholar at the Department of Communication at Hebrew University, wrote a book about sharing called "The Age of Sharing", in which he traces the history of sharing. According to him, as early as 1922, there was a small evangelical fellowship in Oxford. Members shared with each other in the fellowship, and later there were various issue groups. For example, I have an alcohol problem, which I cannot share with others among the general population. They do not have a problem like mine. They only drink alcohol but do not drink alcohol. It is difficult for them to understand my distress. But I can find a community of alcoholics in society where we share experiences, gain understanding and support each other.
I have participated in such a fellowship. There is a specialized Chinese church in a city in the Netherlands. It was first initiated by a group of Hong Kong people. They started their business mainly as restaurants. They are not highly educated and have bad taste. They speak and dress decently. When I first arrived in the Netherlands, I often went to this church to eat. The place was a bit like a commune canteen. There was no charge for meals, and the food was delicious. I ate Chaoshan Poon Choi for the first time there. Abalone, prawns, chicken, duck, pork, mushrooms and radish, layered one on top of the other, revealing each layer after eating, layer upon layer of surprises. There are many ingredients without changing the taste, and they complement each other to create a mellow taste. This kind of thing is the same in principle as Dongbei Ranstew and Hu Shi Yipin Guo, but there is a big difference in taste. The taste of Poon Choi is still much higher. There are not many places to eat Poon Choi in Beijing, and it has not been popularized yet. You need to go to a restaurant to order it during the Chinese New Year. When I think of foreign countries, what I miss most is the Chaoshan flavor in the Netherlands.
In addition to eating, I joined a fellowship called "Lamb Ranch". There are people of all colors inside, including people from the Northeast, Shanghai, and some people from the Northwest. Everyone shares their problems before "God". I remember that a girl was seriously ill, but she was unwilling to say what the specific illness was. I could feel that her problem was very serious. Now it seems that she may be suffering from moderate to severe depression, and her mind often goes offline. Life overseas is often shrouded in great loneliness, and psychological problems are very common. Everyone comes to the Lamb Ranch because of various problems, and only a small number of people come here just for food. This girl shared a lot of her psychological world with us. To be honest, I felt very embarrassed the first few times I shared it. I am willing to listen to other people's troubles and am good at comforting others, but speaking out about my own problems and struggles was as difficult as defecating in public.
Judging from the experience of the Lamb Ranch, an important prerequisite for sharing to occur is that people must find a more noble object and connect under this object. For example, when men and women are connected in front of their parents, it will lead to marriage, and when people are connected in front of the king, it will lead to a country. These are all the results of sharing.In Christian fellowship, sharing is not about self-bragging and vanity satisfaction, but about sincerely accepting one’s identity as a sinner before God and establishing an ethical community in the dual variations of sinfulness and redemption. There are many things that can connect people. For example, sympathy may lead to charity, violence may lead to surrender, and virtue may lead to respect, but these connections are not sharing. Sharing is not only giving and dominating, but sharing is fundamentally recognizing the pure connection between people in a transcendent object and context.
Based on the above understanding of sharing, it can be seen that real sharing activities do not exist in the social media era. WeChat does not help us establish real sharing. It does not involve transcendent objects, let alone connections under such objects. In our current context, an event that still has the meaning of sharing may be the Spring Festival. As a time for family reunion, the Spring Festival is transcendent and communal. It is not only a gathering of family members, but also points to the continuation of the entire family. The Spring Festival as a gathering is closely related to sacrifices. Everyone will go to worship their ancestors, and the whole family will share food, stories, bitterness and joy, all under the care of the spirits of the ancestors. So there is real sharing here, which points to a divine connection. However, the situation has changed a lot in recent years, and the customs have gradually faded away. When people meet, they only talk about the car rental, marriage and having children, and the conversation focuses on how much money they earn. All the talk is crowded on this side, and the words on the other side are sporadic. There is no connection between people, and relatives have become competitors. Everyone needs to ensure victory in a war without gunpowder. This is even more true at work in
, where smart people privatize all public affairs and transcendent gatherings, planning them as matters of personal achievement. For example, how does an ambitious new leader understand the affairs of the company/unit? He/she doesn't care much about the grand ideals of the unit and the company, and doesn't think there is any transcendent dimension in everyone getting together in the unit. The sense of divine calling (vocation) was a rhetorical one for him. The reason why we need to develop company culture is to improve cohesion. Improving cohesion is for the company to achieve better results, thereby benefiting individuals. He/she never shares, only distributes. In such an organization, WeChat brings a false sense of sharing. People organize activities by inviting friends, liking each other, and complimenting each other, making it seem as if there is no shortage of genuine connections. However, what everyone feels deep down is often the social burden brought by WeChat, rather than the joy of sharing. WeChat doesn’t bring us “together.” Its replacement of true sharing, like the cuckoo laying its eggs in a magpie's nest, happens all the time, shamefully.
original author/Wang Xiaowei
excerpt/Shen Lu
editor/Shen Lu
introduction proofread/Zhao Lin
