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Talking to friends on WeChat, Wang Chenchen’s mood changes according to her friends’ replies. Long sentences are always heartwarming and happy emoticons indicate the other person’s good spirits. But one word replies like “OK”, “Oh” or “hehe” quickly kill the mood.
Over-reliance on online communication is causing division between people and social anxiety in this digital era. With social media bringing people closer together than ever before, a new set of online language norms also appears.
Connected or separated
Wang Chenchen, 20, an English major at the University of International Business and Economics says, “I tend to judge my friends by the quality and speed with which they comment on my updates on Weibo or WeChat.”
But to Chen Jie, 21, a biological engineering major at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wang’s evaluation system is problematic. “Everyone has their lifestyle and a certain way of using social media,” says Chen, who is always busy working in the laboratory and hardly has time for social media.
Ge Yan, a professor of communication at Shanghai Jiaotong University, says social media is causing fragmentation (碎片化) of communication. “People tend to judge their surroundings by the information available,” says Ge. “They also evaluate their friendships and others’ lifestyles based on fragmented pieces of information with which they construct a so-called reality.”
Need for emotion
According to Ge, such superficial communication helps encourage more interaction between people, but in terms of building solid interpersonal relationships it causes more harm than good. An online survey on Sina Weibo last month shows, “hehe” was the top conversation killer in 2013. “The words people hate all have one thing in common — a lack of emotion,” says Ge.
Zhang Wei, a professor of linguistics at Renmin University of China, thinks that such short expressions carry so little emotion that they separate people. Chatting online cannot convey the same emotions as communication in real life. This makes it difficult to understand the other person’s true intentions. “That’s why I always suggest talking face to face to resolve problems,” says Zhang. “Unfortunately the reality is that most people spend less time talking to each other in this way.”
Anxiety and insecurity
Zhang further explains that the reason why people’s mood is strongly affected by such unemotional words when communicating online is rooted in social anxiety. People feel insecure because of all kinds of pressures. It’s like a vicious circle — “Less time for face-to-face communication leads to more online communication, but online expressions of emotion are too changeable to provide the comfort needed,” says Zhang. “As a result, people become more anxious.”
Title
| Conversation killers
|
Problems
| People’s mood is easily affected by unemotional words while communicating online.
In this digital era, people are feeling more separated, (1) ________ and insecure than ever before.
|
Reasons
| People (2) ________ on online communication too much.
Online talkers start to (3) ________ a new set of online language norms.
|
Name
| (4)________
| What they say and think
|
Wang
Chenchen
| An English major
| I tend to judge a friend by how well and how
(5) ________ they reply to my updates on Weibo or WeChat.
|
Chen Jie
| A biological engineering major
| Wang’s evaluation system doesn’t hold water because different people have different
(6) ________ and different ways of using social media.
|
Ge Yan
| Professor of communication
| Incomplete (7) ________ can’t be used to evaluate people’s friendships, and superficial communication does harm to interpersonal relationships.
People’s (8) ________ for short and careless replies like “hehe” arises from their lack of emotion.
|
Zhang Wei
| Professor of linguistics
| Those unemotional expressions (9) ________ the gap between people.
My (10) ________ is that people should talk face to face though busy.
|