Mobile phones ruined our intimate relationships?
one
Recently, I saw a news article saying that young monks were looking at their phones too much, which affected their practice.
The lethality of the mobile Internet is far-reaching. The six roots are pure, but what about us ordinary people?
Ten years ago, when social networking was just popular, many elderly people were worried: young people held their mobile phones every day, smiling at the screen or smiling or angry, how could they get it like this.
In the past few years, the old comrades have been busy brushing up on the short **, and they have no spare time to care about young people surfing the Internet, and it is the turn of young people to say to their parents bitterly: "You can't look at your mobile phone less and walk around outside." ”
A friend of mine persuaded her mother, who was addicted to her mobile phone, to read more books, and after turning a few pages, she said to her, "This page doesn't shine, so I can't read it." ”
Children are no better. Nowadays, many children know a lot of unpredictable and inexplicable knowledge, and when they ask, they all see it from the short **. My daughter loves to join us at the ** dinner for no other reason – she can enjoy looking at her phone.
There is a statistic that the average person touches the mobile phone 2,617 times a day, and the heavy mobile phone user touches the mobile phone 5,427 times a day.
Now, who can live without their phone?
II. II. II
Regarding the disadvantages of indulging in mobile phones and social networks, ** has said too much over the years, and that's what it says. Recently, the popular one is the "rebuilding the neighborhood" derived from the anthropological god Xiang Biao, to the effect that mobile phones and the digital world have destroyed the real social interaction of human beings.
"Nearby" naturally makes sense, but when it comes to mobile phones, it always feels too lofty. After all, except for special moments such as the epidemic, modern urban people have little interest in the "neighborhood" of neighborhood, which is more like the preference of urban civilization than the result of mobile phones.
Before entering an intimate relationship, you must first determine the boundaries of using mobile phones with each other", recently read the book "Digital Loneliness: Intimacy in the Age of Social **", at first glance it felt a little sensational, but after reading it carefully, it was a sense of being a slap in the face, it turned out that mobile phones and social ** have profoundly changed the relationship between the sexes of contemporary people.
The author of this book, Michelle Drouin, repeatedly emphasizes in the book: from love, marriage to **, human beings are living in a "intimate famine".
The results of a study in this book showed that over a two-week period, the majority of couples (72%) experienced technological interference in their interactions with their partners**.
In particular, American millennials have less and less sex than previous generations. According to a survey by the authors, the number of men aged 18-44 in the United States who have not had sex in the past year has increased by 7% compared to a decade ago. So much so that the author exclaimed: "What's wrong with this group of young men?".”
Michelle Druin makes it clear that "mobile phones are the root cause of this trend"."It's because mobile phones can satisfy our need for intimacy anytime, anywhere, that real intimacy is compromised." It's almost like to say it again and again: mobile phones castrate men.
If a Chinese demographer reads this, he may jump with great excitementHe thinks he has found another important reason for the decline in fertility, and a solution: restricting the use of mobile phones to increase fertility.
The author of this book doesn't talk about fertility, her character in the book is more like a "love supremacist", talking about dating and **, as a person with the motto of 'love is love unabashed', I think there is no greater pursuit in this world than love and intimacy". Such a gesture may be ridiculed as a "love brain" on Chinese social **, but it also makes the author's research and writing reduce the utilitarianism of "persuading people to have children" and increase affinity.
The author doesn't advise you to get married and have a baby, only advises you to enjoy love and **, isn't this okay?
Whether in the U.S. or China, it may have become a mainstream lifestyle for partners to swipe their phones before bed, communicate what they see on their phones without a pair, and then fall asleep at different times. But the author of this book seems to be disgusted by this, and sees it as the culprit of the demise of romance, and even suggests a "marriage maintenance" suggestion: live with your partner before bedtime, preferably cuddle and fall asleep together, "just this simple repair can increase the happiness of being a couple".
This suggestion may be quite embarrassing for middle-aged couples in China, not only because most people can't do it without using their mobile phones before going to bed, but also because the author may not understand a Chinese national situation: many Chinese couples may not sleep in the same bed (in a room) after having children, let alone hug each other to fall asleep?
After all, in the author's American life world, children sleep alone, and couples who don't get along with each other will sleep in the same bed.
Three
Digital Solitude offers a lot of interesting ideas and refreshes a lot of clichés, but in the context of China's reality, some claims don't seem to be quite right.
After all, this is a psychological book based on the Western context and the Western way of life, and many of the ideas transcend national borders, but some are not.
The most important difference is in the explanation of the causes of the "demise of Romantic". As mentioned earlier. Author Michelle Drew points to mobile phones for the main reason.
That's right, in terms of phenomena,The situation in China is similar to that in the United States: young people are becoming less enthusiastic about dating and marriage. In fact, the cooling of marriage and love in China is even worse than in the United States, according to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs of China, in 2013, China's marriage registration data was as high as 1,346930,000 pairs, which have fallen below the 10 million mark in 2019 and even below the 8 million mark in 2022, only 68330,000 pairs.
In the case of China, of course, there is also a mobile phone and social networking behind this phenomenon, but is this really the same dominant reason as the United States?
Probably not.
In China, the reasons why young people are not keen on dating and getting married are far more complex than in the United States: high housing prices, 996-induced lack of energy to date, the pressure of childbirth, the lack of maternity benefits, gender inequality, and the unfriendly ...... of the workplace towards pregnant women and new mothers
If mobile phones and social networking are more like a "post-modern problem", then many of the reasons why Chinese young people do not fall in love are "modern" or even "pre-modern".
However, these reasons are more likely to explain the low marriage and fertility rates than the fact that young Chinese people do not date. In the case of "not dating", the impact of mobile phones and social networking is likely to be relatively greater.
Again, this may involve the "conservative" atmosphere that pervades young Chinese. Compared with the more "open" previous generations, this generation of young people is more conservative in their attitude towards love and **, and many young Chinese women will even discriminate against the same sex in love, and the derogatory term "love brain" was born in this context.
But the relative reasons, more noteworthy,In China, experts are also more concerned about the low marriage rate and low fertility rate, two indicators of policy significance and utilitarian significance, and lack due concern about why young people are less and less keen to fall in love.
Compared with the pure love stance of the book "Digital Solitude", this kind of marriage and childbearing centrism in China's ** field is not only lower in style, but also completely loses empathy for young people.
Detached from the concern about dating and love, to talk about marriage and childbirth, this is the naked tool man thinking.
As a social science book aimed primarily at Western readers, Digital Solitude is not obligated to explain China's problemsMoreover, it is a work of psychology and does not bear the obligation to explain everything.
Although Digital Loneliness lacks the Chinese Chinese context, its "pure love" position is a more valuable transcendence of China's ** marriage and childbirth utilitarianism.
Four
For human life, is the mobile phone really so devastating?
For example, when talking about the relationship between children and mobile phones, the author clearly points out that excessive use of mobile phones is harmful to children, but also admits that there is a "grassland" for a generation.
In China, the pros and cons of mobile phones for modern life are more controversial than those in Europe and the United States.
For example, this book talks about the damage that mobile phones can do to the parent-child relationship. In China, the absence of fathers in a child's childhood can be a more serious problem. To put it mildly, mobile phones damage the parent-child relationship is a more advanced ill, and Chinese families should first solve the relatively basic problem of the absence of a father.
Another example is, education. Compared with Europe and the United States, the regional differences in the level of education development in China are more significant, and the quality of teachers in underdeveloped regions is worrying, let alone enjoying high-quality education. Therefore, ** education also partially assumes the social function of "knowledge for all" in China. This point is obviously unfamiliar to the author of "Digital Solitude".
In my opinion, the greatest value of this book for the Chinese world, in addition to the above-mentioned "pure love position", is the fundamentalist position on human intimacy, "when people give up interacting with the people around them and choose to interact with mobile phones, the negative impact appears".
I don't know when the term "social fear" has become a popular label in China. Of course, I know that there are many people who are introverted by nature and don't like to socialize, and society should certainly take a tolerant stance towards them, but this does not mean that "social fear" has become a popular label that everyone tends to, as if young people will be marginalized if they do not advertise their social fear.
As a result, all ways of connecting with people are devalued as a backward way of life, and people who like to socialize are brought to the slightly ridiculous word "social development".
In other words, in the popular concept of Chinese young people, social fear is the mainstream culture, and social awareness has become a marginal culture. Speech that encourages young people to get out of the house and engage more with society is seen as greasy and daddy.
Respecting everyone's way of life, including social fears, is a sign of progress in modern civilization, but now it is moving towards the opposite trend.
Digital Solitude is not written for Chinese, but the book's fundamentalist stance on human intimacy is a useful correction to China's culture of social fear.
Solitude is an ability, solitude is a state, but intimacy is closer to the essence of human beings, and it is impossible to achieve a true "inner loop" in everyone's life.
The author is a writer and is the author of "Abandoning Chang'an" and "Entering the Customs".
Author: Zhang Mingyang.
Visual China, IC
*Editor: Zhang Xu.
Duty Editor: Yang Yongjie.