Are you a modern person who has been deeply “kidnapped” by WeChat?

Mary Meeker, a Wall Street securities analyst known as the "Queen of the Internet," once released a "2018 Internet Trends Report." The report pointed out that Chinese users spend an average of 3.1 billion hours a day on mobile applications. Of this, about 900 million hours are spent on WeChat, accounting for about 29%.

Currently, more than 1 billion people in China use WeChat, which means that the average daily usage time of a single person is about 90 minutes. In fact, many people use WeChat for much longer than this number, and many young people are severely addicted to WeChat.

Rather than saying that they are kidnapped by WeChat, it is better to say that they are smiling and actively giving their time and lives to WeChat. Even WeChat founder Zhang Xiaolong once lamented: "Users use WeChat for too long and too often."

01WeChat has become the whole world for many people

The first thing many people do when they wake up in the morning is to take out their phones and check WeChat. As long as they don’t miss a WeChat message or a Moments circle, they will feel like they have the world in their hands.

Once, when a friend sent me a screenshot of his phone, I noticed a detail: he had thousands of unread WeChat messages. I curiously asked him, "Are they all work WeChat messages?"

He said that it had nothing to do with work, and that most of them were just jokes between friends, but he would read every one of them, without missing a single one, as if he had "obsessive-compulsive disorder". He would not feel at ease if he did not read them all. His state is not uncommon. In this way, many people's lives are completely occupied or even replaced by WeChat.

Last weekend, my colleague and some classmates met for dinner. Although we were in the same city, we hadn’t seen each other for a long time. Before the party, she was very happy, but after the party, she told me in frustration that it would be better not to meet.

The party scene she described is not unfamiliar to me. As soon as we sat down, everyone took out their phones and stared at the screens intently, not even taking the time to exchange pleasantries.

What’s funny is that they were sitting face to face but chatting in a common WeChat group. They were too lazy to even comment on the dishes, but instead sent WeChat messages to the group.

We spend too much time on WeChat, but are reluctant to spend time with people in real life. WeChat was originally created to enhance communication with people, but now it has become the whole world for many people, and the person on the other end of the connection has become less important.

02 WeChat is given too much "meaning"

WeChat has occupied our time and kidnapped our thoughts. In the use of WeChat, it has been gradually given too many meaningless "meanings".

For example, someone who doesn’t reply to your message immediately definitely doesn’t love you, and someone who doesn’t reply to your message is even more unforgivable, even if he does it occasionally.

These "meanings" require people to make an automatic reply robot that is online all year round. As long as someone sends a message, it will immediately pop up a reply saying "Dear, I'm here."

It has to be said that these "meanings" have misled many people, and these people who have been misled by "meanings" use them to kidnap others. In interpersonal interactions, they even have the privilege of a veto.

At a party, Afang met a new friend. They got along very well and added each other on WeChat before parting.

At that time, Afang was learning baking and often shared her creations on WeChat Moments. One day, Afang received a WeChat message from the other party, asking for advice on how to make a birthday cake. The other party wanted to make a cake by hand and give it to her boyfriend. That day, Afang was very busy and did not see the WeChat message immediately.

In the evening, as soon as Afang saw the message, she immediately started to reply. She recorded a long voice message, but failed to send it. WeChat prompted that she was no longer the other party's friend. Because she did not reply to the message in time, the other party had said goodbye to her.

Obviously, she did not pass the other party's "meaning" test, but Afang really cherished this new friendship from the bottom of her heart. Unfortunately, no matter how sincere Afang was, she did not win the "meaning" and the friendship ended there.

03 WeChat has been interpreted into too many "emojis"

My friend A Kuan said that he was most afraid of "expressing the wrong emotion" when chatting on WeChat. Originally, WeChat emoticons were used to liven up the atmosphere, but he didn't expect that they had so many meanings that he couldn't understand. Last year, A Kuan met a girl through a friend's introduction. After meeting, both of them had a good impression of each other and were willing to continue dating.

However, a few months later, the girl said goodbye to him. He didn't know what went wrong. His friend told him that the other party felt that he was insincere and was aloof and perfunctory during WeChat chats. A Kuan looked up the chat records and asked his friends to help "diagnose". The friend shook his head while reading them. A Kuan's WeChat chats were all minefields.

When his friends circled his "mistakes", they gave him a shocking "red cross". When using WeChat emoticons, A Kuan almost never used them correctly. A Kuan thought the "smile" emoticon expressed friendliness and gentleness, but he didn't expect it to be a "fake smile".

Thinking of how he frequently used that expression, A Kuan couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. Where he didn't use an expression, the screen was still full of "wrong" expressions. For example, words like "hmm" and "oh" would make the other person feel that A Kuan was looking at the screen with indifference and impatience.

A Kuan felt very wronged after hearing his friend’s “diagnosis”, because he always had a sweet look on his face when he sent WeChat messages.

When sending "hmm", he even nodded solemnly at the screen, but he didn't expect that these emotional interjections would be interpreted as so many "bad expressions" on the other end. This is really a bit ironic. When you are face to face, the enthusiasm and sincerity you give can never beat the "indifference" that WeChat helps you interpret.

04WeChat is changing our lives

We have poured so much enthusiasm into WeChat and tried so hard to "interpret" it, but it has not made our lives and interpersonal relationships better. Robin Dunbar, an anthropologist at Oxford University, once proposed a famous theory called "Dunbar's Number". The theory points out that the size of the human brain's neocortex is limited, which determines that the upper limit of a person's social circle is 150 people, and the number of people with whom he can have in-depth communication is only about 20.

In traditional society, the people we interact with most frequently are usually our relatives, friends, and classmates. These are "strong relationships" in interpersonal communication, and the rest are usually "weak relationships." After spending too much time with weak relationships, people will become unskilled in handling "strong relationships." The excessive use of WeChat is turning our "strong relationships" into pan-social relationships.

A WeChat account can have up to 5,000 friends. Many young people have hundreds or even thousands of "friends" on WeChat. Such a group of friends may seem huge, but when you want to talk, you can't find a suitable person to talk to. Unknowingly, those "strong relationships" have been lost.

At the same time, in WeChat communication, those who understand the "meaning" and "expression" of WeChat make you happy, but they are not necessarily "like-minded people". You are well versed in routines, but you may be being tricked by others. Whether it is life or interpersonal relationships, WeChat always gives us a false impression. It makes you feel that you have a richer life, but you are just facing the screen day after day; it makes you feel that you have more friends, but you just become more lonely.

05Putting down WeChat can bring you real life

There is nothing wrong with WeChat itself, but the people and the way they use it are wrong. We regard WeChat as the whole world and lose the sense of real life. A few years ago, British writer and director Gary Turk made a short video called "Lift Your Head Up", calling on everyone to put down their mobile phones. Every word in it is a wake-up call.

"I have 422 friends, but I am lonely. I talk to them every day, but no one really understands me." "We are happy to share an experience, but if there is no one to accompany us, will the happiness still exist?" "The children around us have watched us live like robots since they were born and think it is normal."

When I was a kid, I was never at home. I rode my bikes with my friends and wandered around. Now, the park is so quiet that it makes people feel cold. "It is difficult for us to feel the richness, fun and warmth of life through WeChat and the cold screen of mobile phones.

It's time to look up from your phone, look at the people and things around you, and make them the focus of your day. Just start talking to people, and your life will change quietly. Don't just put your family and friends in your WeChat friend list, but give them high-quality companionship.

A heart-warming word, a sincere hug, and a shoulder to lean on will always be better than a mature WeChat chat or caring questions through the screen.