Statium | "Connection" and "Broken Connection" should be independent choices

Author: Deputy Director and Master of Journalism Department of Zhang Tiantian Shenzhen University School of Communication

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once depicted the beautiful blueprint for social networks: "Facebook has the ability to gather people who may never have the opportunity to meet. Share more ideas and information than in the past, we have changed from a world composed of an isolated community to a global community, and we have become better. "

The negative impact of "Forever Online"

Social media does change the way people interact with each other and make the world highly connect. A survey by Global Webindex shows that 58.4 % of the world's population, that is, 4.62 billion people are using social media, using an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes a day. Maintaining connection has become the normal state of people in social life, work, and study. To a certain extent, the various mobile digital devices have become the extension of people's self, shaping a society with "continuous connection" and "forever online".

It is undeniable that the connection of the virtual world brings people great convenience and rich possibilities. According to a research from Canadian scholars in 2021, during the isolation of the new crown epidemic, the connection and interaction on social media can effectively help young people to get the feeling of contact with society, so that they will not have a strong sense of social disconnection, and they can make their hearts in their hearts. The happiness of happiness is maintained at a certain level.

At the same time, existing studies have found that the excessive connections brought by social media seem to have made the beautiful vision depicted by Zuckerberg a phantom. A study of "American Prevention Medical Magazine" surveyed the use of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and VINE, etc. Time and frequency of social media platform. Studies have found that the more times the number of young people check others, the more likely it is to have a sense of social isolation. This conclusion sounds even ironic that the platform aims to connect people's platforms has the opposite effect. However, a large number of studies support this discovery from different angles. Over -use use of social media is indeed significantly related to the decline of loneliness, anxiety, depression, insecurity, jealousy, narcissism, and offline social skills.

In the current "forever online" environment, the negative impact of over -connection is far more than that: more and more WeChat friends and subscription public accounts, new information that can't be seen, 24 hours online work group The endless negative comparison of the circle of friends, the complicated self -performance ... the overload of the information, the overload of the social network, and even the "social media burnout". The evaluation information turned to "diving" and not reply, and then avoid and resist social media, such as choosing a large number of content to block or ignore, refuse to interact with others on social media until the final exit and delete the app. These various "broken" behaviors, together with "digital diet", "digital detoxification", "digital minimalism", etc., constitute a rich "broken" practice. In 2018, Hill Holliday released the "Gen Zen Social Media Survey Report" released by Hill Holliday, showing that more than half of young people have reduced the use of social media, and 34 % of young people stop using social media.

"Digital refugees" forced to disconnect

In today's media ecosystem, whether the above -mentioned "broken" behavior is sustainable and truly effective, we still don't know. But at least, this is the active struggle for people when facing excessive connection, the adjustment of their own social media application strategies, and a self -choice that shows the subjectivity. Corresponding to this is another "passive break", which is more hidden in social life, but I think it needs to get people's attention.

In the tide of digitalization, some people cannot achieve real numbers due to various reasons, and they are forced to break until they become "digital refugees" in people's mouths. In real life, they may be because people who are not rejected by the store because they do not operate the network payment. They do not know how to apply for a health code in different places and eventually abandon the travel plan. When the verification code of the slider, I have to give up the visually impaired people who submitted their resumes. They are those who have no smartphones and cannot reserve various public services online ...

In a society that fully implements digitalization and connects with this, it is difficult for them to cross the thresholds built by various elements such as technology and economy, and they are forced to break. In today's social context, the number breaks to a certain extent means disconnected from society or even encountering social exclusion. I have to admit that this is a new number of unequal numbers. In the face of these people, what we should think about is: In addition to emphasizing the integration of numbers, are there any other possibilities? If they are really difficult to obtain digital connections, can they still have a non -digital approach to obtain their due public services and social benefits?

Society should not have only the only option of "connection"

In fact, whether it is a "passive break" or "passive connection", it will cause people to afford and trouble. In the social environment of digital connection too much at the moment, scholars continue to call for "Right to disconnect". Many countries in Europe and the United States have even confirmed the "disconnection of power" in the form of law, and have achieved legalization of disconnected practice. In 2017, France announced the earliest labor law related to this right, stipulating that employees have the right to disconnect the connection with digital communication with the workplace outside the working hours. According to this law, companies with more than 50 employees must formulate behavior rules and regulations to ensure that employees do not have to send and receive job emails after get off work and holidays. In 2018, the "Data Protection Act" promulgated by Spain also proposed "disconnected power" as a legitimate right, allowing employees to cut off all connection devices at non -working hours; in January 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution to call on the EU The committee formulates regulations on disconnected power. In November of that year, Portugal passed a law that stipulated that employees were illegal to contact employees through mail and other methods.

In fact, the broken power is not limited to the right of a worker, and it is also proposed and emphasized at a more extensive social level. For example, the "National Out of Development Day" advocated by the United States calls on people to turn off electronic equipment throughout the day of the first Friday on the first Friday of March, and even unplugged the power to focus on self and real offline social networks. Similar advocates include the "Sabbath Declaration" and so on. These rich practice remind us that society should not only have the only option of "connection". Whether it is "connection" or "broken connection", it should be people's independent choices.

Source | Jingbao APP

Edit: Chen Jianguo

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