Now all kinds of problems on social platforms are becoming more and more personal. Now you can ask strangers one by one about ugly things that are difficult to tell your partner, parents, private things that you can’t find answers on the Internet, and small things that you are embarrassed to trouble your friends. But listen to netizens, what will life be like?
You might not realize how much we can now rely on the decisions of other people to live our lives. For example, which clothes look good to buy, whether the other party should break up if they do so, whether to take the postgraduate entrance examination, public examination, go abroad or enter a large Internet company after graduation. Put all kinds of questions on the Internet, and there will be kind people answering for you.
For a long time, the Internet has promoted the use of search engines to encourage self-digestion of problems, but now various problems on social platforms have become more and more personal. Now you can ask strangers one by one about ugly things that are difficult to tell your partner, parents, private things that you can’t find answers on the Internet, and small things that you are embarrassed to trouble your friends.
What is everyone struggling with?
Today ‘s netizens want to leave everything to strangers to worry about. For example, a group called “Please help me choose” on Douban has 400,000 members. These people seem to have sincerely handed over part of the choice to netizens.
These people are as big as who to marry, where to work, and as small as which photo to post in Moments, whether to eat porridge or noodles tonight, and ask everything. According to the data, among the top 20 keywords of the Douban group’s entangled content, there are not only small things such as “good-looking, color, and mobile phone”, but also major life events such as “work, school, and house”.
The most common questions have to be about work, such as which offer (admission notice) to choose, which company to choose, what is the salary level, and a series of life questions, such as “should I give up my job for love?” “Entrepreneurship or part-time job” ” Which one to choose between dreams and high salaries” are all big problems that you and I may face in life hurdles.
Studying and entering a higher education also creates a lot of problems. At this time, if you step on the shoulders of netizens, you may be able to see shortcuts that others cannot see. Which school to choose, which major to study, whether to take the postgraduate entrance examination, and which city to go to, every student who sincerely asks a question is waiting for enthusiastic netizens and teachers to come to give advice.
Then there is the house, from renting a house to buying a house, you have to ask the netizens who have experienced the battle. As an old netizen lurking in the selection team, checking the floor plan of a house for others is no longer a big deal. You can also browse a series of internal information from the quality of neighbors to school district housing, from subway distance to the location of nucleic acid kiosks, etc., and then substitute the questioner’s own economic, emotional, family, and employment status to complete an imaginative house purchase.
Of course, in addition to these serious life decisions, the selection panel also asked everyone to vote on which things the landlord should buy. Whether a product looks good or not and what color to choose are the most popular questions in the group. In the active speeches under these posts, you can get a glimpse of how far the Internet aesthetics and consumption views have developed.
The most popular advice is always: Think for yourself What would it be like
if every decision in your life was made by a stranger? If you live according to the suggestions of unfamiliar netizens, your life will probably be like this: In terms of
life choices, netizens will probably suggest you: What do you choose for arts and sciences? Choose science; choose what kind of work? It is the best policy to choose a safe and easy civil servant; work hard in a big city or go back to your hometown? Try it in a big city first.
In terms of life choices, netizens are likely to advise you: rent a house with a short commute or a cheaper one? Definitely choose the closest one; do you want plastic surgery? It’s best not to, the risk is too great, and the appearance is harmful; which one should you choose for a salary of 15% more a month or weekends? Choose weekends.
Regarding interpersonal relationships, netizens are likely to suggest to you: When falling in love, should you choose a marriage partner or someone you like? If you choose what you like, it may not be successful but you will not regret it; at work, there are people who blame the blame and push the blame, do you have to be patient? Decline or fool the past; others have made strange opinions, do you want to answer them? Don’t worry about it so much, just be happy.
In short, the most popular advice is always centered on self-feeling, and think more about yourself; if you want to do it, don’t leave any regrets, and don’t care what others think.
Decision Fatigue: The More Choices, the Less Choices
In today’s era of “too many options and don’t know how to choose”, contemporary people struggle with too many things every day. According to one study, an adult makes an average of 35,000 decisions a day, but not everyone is ready for it. This kind of contemporary fatigue of “the more choices the less you can choose” is called “decision fatigue”.
In this case, no matter how much decision-making information is provided, it is difficult to help ordinary people. Even after mastering enough information that can be searched and experiencing a long struggle, people are still unable to make decisions, hoping to get analysis and persuasion from strangers again.
So, why can’t the question-and-answer platform satisfy young people today?
Traditional question-and-answer sites inherently rarely listen to individuals with very specific life problems. Baidu knows that many of the questions it solves have standard answers, and those that can’t be found can’t be asked; what is popular in Zhihu is the “composition answer sheet” mode, which is convenient for writing full-score essays and questions that can show the answerer’s thinking ability. Valuable, public and topical issues can attract people. On these platforms, if you want to trouble everyone with your personal affairs, you must have the awareness that no one will answer you or be dissected in public.
Life-oriented social platforms such as Douban and Xiaohongshu perfectly meet various personal needs. They are mixed with book video recommendations, home life Vlogs (short videos), cute pet videos, and clothing outfits, and they are pushed to you all at once, so that you can answer questions and give advice on other people’s lives in non-professional fields.
But in reality, the choice of social platform is not guaranteed to work. Those who give suggestions may not have experience in civil service examinations, and they may not have severed ties with annoying relatives and friends, or dare to resign on the spot, but this does not prevent people from giving such and other suggestions, nor does it prevent the questioner from these rational Gain courage in answering.
The person who asks the question seeks rational advice, and the person who advises obtains pleasure through rational analysis. Both parties have completed their own idealization to a certain extent: becoming a modern, rational adult who is not dominated by emotions and trends.
