Digital Essay 1: Weibo and me

Every day, when I take the shuttle to school, or after I finish one class, or even at any spare time, I would unlock my iPhone to check what is happening in Weibo, This seems already to be a daily habit of me. As a person without much interpersonal communication, I mostly rely on Weibo to spend my extra time or to fulfill my life.

Weibo is a popular micro blogging platform especially focusing on Chinese people. This name is the direct Chinese translation of micro blog. Due to certain Internet restrictions and political issue, we Chinese people do not have legal access to Twitter, the well-known social networking website, or any other social platforms outside of China. As a plausible substitute or an parody of Twitter, Weibo was created by Sina, one of the biggest Internet companies in China, in 2009. Its amount of users did not skyrocketing until 2012. Nowadays, there are over than three hundreds millions monthly active users in Weibo. I started using Weibo in 2012, at the time when Weibo became famous. Now it is my fifth year of using Weibo. I have not passed any day of staying away from Weibo in the past five years. I feel like Weibo has already been an indispensable part of my life.

In Weibo, I followed a variety of users I am interested in, ranging from celebrities to any micro bloggers who are posting information I like. I am a fan of anime and games, so I choose to follow a number of users in such areas. Also, I learn about current affairs through Weibo. Since many news websites or newspapers have their own micro bloggers, I do not need to keep up with the latest news intentionally. Slightly press the screen to refresh, all of the new information or any information I miss before is presented to me. I think Weibo provides us the most convenient way to follow the trend and get to know the world.

Besides paying attention to micro bloggers, sometimes I would like to comment on certain blogs or publish my own blogs. Due to the property of anonymity, we can say whatever we want to say, including something we never dare to speak out in the real life. Therefore, many people are inclined to communicate with each other in Weibo. I think this reflects what Lanier said in his essay that "impersonal communication has demeaned interpersonal communication". Without the acquaintance of others, everyone may choose to play a certain role they like in the environment of Weibo. It could be the role which cannot be achieved or shown in the real life. For me, the "role" I have is a crazy fan boy of a Japanese idol, while in the real life I hardly ever mention this hobby to others. Communicating in such "roles" can lead to much more fun than communicating in the real life because there are users who appreciate you or be assessed with the same thing with you. Consequently, interpersonal communication may seem less important. Also, somehow we might be confused by the identity "defined" by Weibo or the identity in the real life. It is hard to distinguish which identity is the true reflection of us. Maybe the real life identity is the "camouflage" but the virtual identity is the real reflection.

Although we enjoy such freedom by Weibo, Weibo cannot provide us with all the freedom we wish. Because of some political concerns, recently Weibo has published a series of protocols requiring users to sign to control the content we can say. Also, now anyone using Weibo need to pass the identity authentication. Therefore, there is not the absolute anonymous environment in Weibo. The administrators know who we are so that we are unable to express our opinions recklessly. Any sensitive comments would result in some negative effects to Weibo accounts or even to real life(see: http://www.businessinsider.com/blocked-and-banned-on-sina-weibo-2014-10; http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2096832/june-4-blackout-chinas-weibo-blocks-overseas-users).

As I used Weibo more, I think I am somehow influenced by Weibo ideologically. Like Althusser claimed in his essay, "all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects". I think Weibo interpellates me negatively. At the time when I started using Weibo, I enjoyed publishing original content about myself or something I was interested in. Nevertheless, due to the open property, my content can be shown to everyone, which could lead to some comments about my content. As a result, some comments which were against my opinions or criticized me truly affected my mood. On the other hand, since I followed and was followed by some real life friends, I began to care about what they thought about me through this stuff online, whether they have the same negative opinions to me. I am a person who is not willing to leave any bad impressions to acquaintance and take notice of others' opinions toward me. Also, the gradually strengthened regulation of speech made me fear about the potential consequence of some improper words. As a consequence, I gradually published less and less original content. At present most of my Weibo are forwarded from others' content. I just passively receive anything that Weibo offer to me, like a "concrete subject" of Weibo. Also, in the real life, I found out that I speak less to others, which I am not sure whether this is due to the use of Weibo. I feel like I become more conservative and more introvert, hence my interpersonal interaction decreases, which makes me spend more time online or in Weibo to spare time.

So this is the social platform I used every day. Although it is not perfect, I am still fond of using it. I guess the main reason is that I have gotten used to its functions and settings, even though today I can access to twitter without restrictions.

(Word Count: 967)

Reference:

Ramasubbu, Suren. “Influence of Social Media on Teenagers.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 May 2015, www.huffingtonpost.com/suren-ramasubbu/influence-of-social-media-on-teenagers_b_7427740.html.

Lanier, Jaron. You Are Not a Gadget: a Manifesto. Knopf, 2011.

Althusser, Louis. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. 2008.

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