Are young people who are ＂socially degraded＂ living more comfortably？

In 2023, the social observation reality show "Fifty Kilometers of Peach Blossom House" was filmed in the third season, and the talk show actor Bird Bird who set up a circle with "social fear" people became the biggest attraction of this season. There is a scene in the program: Bird Bird and Eric Wang, who are also withdrawn, are standing by the wall, one with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed, and the other with his hands clasped, looking ahead. At that moment, only embarrassment flows in the air. This picture was sent to me by a friend who doesn’t watch variety shows, so it is widely circulated. She said, "Isn’t that you?" I said, "So are you?"

Today, everyone can find some resonance in "social fear", otherwise "social degradation" will not become a hot word. Social degradation is a complex phenomenon:Sometimes it shows retreat, which means that people begin to avoid and cut some social relationships in their lives, and sometimes it shows active choice, which means that people begin to tend to simple and controllable shallow relationships.

But "social demotion" is an ambiguous expression. First of all, it has no subject. Who wants to demote? Secondly, it has no sense of object. What part of social life do we want to degrade? Finally, it has no frame of reference. Did there ever exist a standard social interaction in our social life? The only consensus we can reach is that,It is conveying a general feeling that "socializing" is very tiring.

The first question to understand is, what exactly do we mean by "social"? According to the definition in the dictionary, any contact between people can be called social interaction, that is, social interaction. But it’s hard to say with the suffix "degraded". Everyone feels different pressure points, and the word "social" in "social degradation" has different meanings: migrant workers are most likely to be troubled by the incessant WeChat messages, so they want to reduce their online exposure, so they have "read it back" or "friends circle can be seen for three days" or even "digital fasting". For young people who have just entered the society, it is particularly difficult to cope with the traditional human relations, so they have to "break off their relatives" or "clean up the workplace". For middle-aged people, too many relationships have been alienated, but they still have to spend energy to maintain them. It is better to "downgrade friendship" or "stay away from dinner".

Hu Penghui, a teacher at the School of Social Studies, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, has been paying attention to the social trends of young people in the past two years, and has written articles on "sense of boundary" and "socializing with children". I asked him to help us draw a range: how to understand the concept of "social" in popular discourse?

Hu Penghui told me that the social communication we are talking about is narrower than the definition in the dictionary, and tends to have social and cultural attributes. "For example, if you chat with your family, go to the supermarket to talk to the salesperson, and discuss transactional work with your colleagues, you won’t think’ I am socializing’. The social interaction we are talking about today, that is, the social interaction in English,In particular, it emphasizes its social attribute, which belongs to the field of’ communication’ in the three major fields of modern society defined by emotional sociology. "

Emotional sociology believes that our emotions in social interaction are an important factor reflecting the changes of our whole society. Jonathan Turner, the author of Emotional Sociology, said: "Emotion is the maintainer of interpersonal relationship, the undertaker of macro-social structure and its cultural generation, and also a force that can split society. Therefore, emotion is an important force to promote social reality at all levels, from face-to-face interpersonal communication to large-scale organizational systems that constitute modern society. "

What does "communication" mean in emotional sociology? Hu Penghui used the theory of Cheng Boqing, his mentor and professor of Nanjing University School of Social Sciences, to illustrate this problem. The social life of modern people is divided into three areas: work, consumption and communication. We follow different emotional mechanisms in different fields. In the field of work, the "finishing system" is dominant, which requires individuals to manage and adjust their emotions and adapt to external organizational and professional requirements. The dominant emotion in the work is "friendliness". What dominates the consumption field is the "experience system", which requires individuals to pursue the happiness brought by novel experiences, so as to show their individuality and their own value. The dominant emotion in this field is "happiness and pleasure".In the field of communication, the "performance system" is dominant, which requires people to create a "micro-landscape" by means of exaggerated expression or strengthening the atmosphere of specific situations, and the emotion that dominates this field is "love".

The theory sounds very simple. Our life consists of three parts. What society requires of us is to express corresponding emotions in different social activities. But the reality is often more complicated. With the blessing of network technology, our social "performance" can start at any time, with no end, regardless of occasion and time. The boundaries between "work, consumption and communication" are increasingly blurred, and there are complex tensions.No one can split his life neatly, let alone manage his emotions strictly according to the life schedule, otherwise he may be as crazy as the company employees who underwent personality splitting surgery in Life Cutting.

Stills of "Life Cutting"

Hu Penghui’s concern for modern people’s social life also began with Fifty Kilometers of Peach Blossom House. What caught his attention was a small incident between actor Guo Qilin and action art Chen chen Chen in the first season: Chen chen Chen asked Guo Qilin to help with the installation, but Guo Qilin, who is famous for his high emotional intelligence and love of help, refused. He turned back and spoke privately to talk show actor Li Xueqin: "It’s like a friend who has nothing to do with you at ordinary times and comes to you for help." Li Xueqin expressed his understanding and summed up a social principle for him: "I don’t bother you, so don’t bother me."

In Hu Penghui’s view, the friction between Guo Qilin and Chen chen Chen is "a matter of border sense". Guo Qilin didn’t have a problem with Chen chen Chen, but the other party broke the boundary he drew for "asking for help". To put it bluntly, it was "friendship didn’t reach this point". At that time, Guo Qilin received a lot of criticism, perhaps because the audience acquiesced that the recording of programs was Guo Qilin’s job. In this case, he did not seem to show a friendly face in his work, but handled it according to his own standards in daily communication. But then again, this program is originally a "social observation", and it is Guo Qilin’s job to show his true self in the field of communication.There is often no right or wrong in social scenes, only a feeling of "discomfort", which is why it is exhausting.

Besides work, we have to pay emotional labor, consumption activities also consume emotions, and communication activities are also mixed with consumption and work, which directly hinders us from being ourselves. Hu Penghui concluded: "In individuals, the separation of the three fields can make it possible for us to pursue ourselves. Socialization becomes a burden, which happens when the three fields are integrated. The question is, who can separate work, consumption and communication so clearly? "

Hu Penghui is a post-90s generation. When he gets along with students born after 00, he finds himself confused about the "boundary". Take the common concept of "teacher" in campus life as an example. When he went to school, he felt that the students of the same teacher were close to each other or at least supported each other. However, among the students he is taking now, many people have a good sense of boundary. "I gave them a cooperative project, and they were willing to communicate with me separately. When I suggested that they could communicate with the same group of students, they found that they didn’t have much contact. Then I found out,Their understanding of their classmates seems to be limited to the objective’ all under the name of a teacher’, and there is no subjective alliance between them. "

Hu Penghui feels that the core of the troubles brought by social interaction is often the question of where this line should be drawn. "The so-called" ineffective social interaction ",or the part of things that make people feel anxious or want to be downgraded in social interaction, is these" interactions "at the junction of the three major fields. But the boundary is a subjective psychological distance, not an objective spatial distance, and the boundary in everyone’s mind is different. It is the ambiguity of this definition that has caused everyone’s anxiety about social life. " Hu Penghui said.

The first episode of the British drama Black Mirror in the third season fictionalizes a society dominated by "social rating", where a person’s success is not judged by professional achievements, wealth or personality, but by the rating of a social networking site hanging over everyone’s head. In order to attend the wedding of plastic sister flowers, the heroine Leiqian entered the high-level social circle and went crazy. After a series of embarrassing accidents, her social score is still not enough. She completely collapsed, broke into the wedding scene and swore, her social score was zero, and she became a "social prisoner". Zoom out, behind the iron cage, she still has many prisoners.

"Socialization" has become a part of our daily performance. Under the attack of both offline and online, modern people are generally in a state of social burnout. We are in the same situation as Lacey. We have too many superficial relationships, are subject to ubiquitous social judgments, and are in an uninterrupted social connection. The standard of being a "perfect social person" is getting higher and higher.

In Lacey’s world, social success is the only criterion of social success. Unrealistic social requirements have led to a large number of quitters who quit social competitions.

Zheng Dandan, a professor at the School of Sociology of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, discussed a similar phenomenon, which originated from the "social withdrawal" put forward by American sociologist Merton: "A highly competitive society will inevitably make many people unable to complete social tasks and give up … In some cases, some social structure and cultural factors may cause individuals in society to take withdrawal behavior more generally (with great possibility)." Zheng Dandan’s thesis was written in 2019. At that time, she observed that people around her and even herself would give up some social tasks intermittently, "mainly because of the mismatch between goals and means". Socialization is also a social task, so can we understand "social fear" or "social degradation" as "social retreat" under pressure?

Zheng Dandan thinks that "social fear" in the pathological sense can be regarded as a kind of social retreat. "It means completely giving up the goal of interpersonal communication stipulated by society, even if it is the simplest meeting with strangers, it is impossible to say hello politely and keep in touch with friends to express concern". But today, "social fear" has been used as a generalized label. "The" social fear "we are talking about today is similar to a kind of" retreat "with positive color. Because it is difficult to meet some inherent social rules, I may explain myself by looking for another track or dissolving the meaning of the goal.The main purpose is to dispel the traditional interpersonal rules that people are unwilling to abide by and buffer the impact of social changes. "

When it comes to the impact of modern society, a word that is often mentioned is also put forward by the German philosopher Han Bingzhe."Meritorious society".Han Bingzhe compared the meritorious society to a "Dopinggesellschaft", in which the whole society is full of excessive upward energy, resulting in a kind of efficiency that has no efficiency. "The whole human being has evolved into an efficiency machine, running smoothly and unimpeded, trying to maximize its own efficiency." The corresponding negative consequence is that "the unrestrained pursuit of efficiency improvement leads to mental obstruction".

Stills of "No Reimbursement Today"

Dong Chenyu, a lecturer at the School of Journalism of China Renmin University, mainly studies social media and online culture, and the social life of young people is also within his concern.He thinks that the reason for "social degradation" is that we are overwhelmed by the meritorious society, so we have to reduce social costs and improve social efficiency. The emotional value that we need to obtain in the long-term intimate relationship must be obtained in a low-cost way."’social degradation’ sounds like a description of space. From top to bottom, in fact, I think it is a matter of time. It is that we are constantly compressing the time and energy spent on socializing. It is such a choice in a sense to play with children and games." Dong Chenyu said.

Dong Chenyu evaluated himself as a very "Buddhist" person, but also indirectly felt the social pressure exerted by the meritorious society. He found that students who had worked as interns in "big factories" would use efficiency tools in the communication between teachers and students. Some students ask him to revise his thesis, and they will throw a "flying book" document, which indicates the exact time and place where the teacher needs to give guidance. "According to my habit, I usually reply within a week, or I may be too busy to push it for another three or four days, but I can feel the students’ obvious disappointment because I have pushed back the whole schedule of his’ flying books’. There is a feeling that I have entered the’ big factory’ and the students are my boss. " Dong Chenyu called this phenomenon "life tabulation". "Our life is full of efficiency tools. Time is quantified, and so is socialization. But I also understand them that this’ social downgrade’ is an expedient measure in helplessness. "

Stills of "I’m fine in a foreign land"

Another important feature of modern society is a high degree of division of labor and atomization. Different from the acquaintance society connected by blood and geography in the past, we live in a stranger society.

There is a Korean film called People Living Alone, which describes such a life. The heroine, Zhenya, works as an operator. She talks to countless people every day, but only answers according to her words, which does not produce real communication. She always walks in the company wearing headphones and doesn’t talk to her colleagues. She lives in an apartment building with poor sound insulation, but she doesn’t even know that her neighbor died at home. She is at odds with her father and refuses to meet him. She has lived alone in a big city for two years. Many people may envy Zhenya’s life. She never empathizes with strange customers, her emotions are not disturbed by work, she doesn’t have to attend colleagues’ parties, deal with neighborhood relations, and even "break off her relatives". She lived a regular and quiet life in a stranger’s world, and became an excellent employee. Living alone made her look comfortable.

What does a stranger mean?In his article Stranger, sociologist Zimmel defined it as follows: "(Stranger) contains the unity of proximity and distance in any relationship between people, and it can reach a situation that can be summarized most briefly here. The distance within the relationship means that the close person comes from afar, but strangeness means that the distant person is nearby." Simply put, strangers are part of a group, but they are not fixed by blood or geography. They are a group of people who are close in physical space and far away in psychological space.

Zhenya’s life is easy to make people empathize because it is very common. But a question that is not easy to answer is that the anxiety of urbanization and the atomized society have existed for a long time. Why have we become fond of talking about "social degradation" in recent years? Dong Chenyu put forward a perspective: this is related to the "homecoming tide" of young people in big cities in recent years. With the economic downturn, competition in big cities has intensified.Many young people return to their hometown after living in first-and second-tier cities for several years and find themselves "unable to blend in".

My interviewee, Azhi, is in line with Dong Chenyu’s observation. The reason why she looks for friends online is "going back to her hometown". Azhi grew up in Xinjiang, then went to Beijing to go to college and returned to work in Xinjiang after graduation. In her hometown, she found that she had lost her peer circle: her high school friends rarely stayed in her hometown, some went abroad for further study, and others worked in big cities. At home, she and her parents "talk too much", so they moved out to live by themselves. It can be said that she became a stranger in her hometown.

Stills of "Children of the Jstars"

Azhi is one of the five interviewees I found in the "social rehabilitation" group of Douban. A "group" is a small group of strangers with a very "vertical subdivision". People from all over the world can form a temporary alliance because of any strange little thing. In fact, many social relationships that we actively choose today are built between strangers. The network gives us the possibility of crossing space and time and reaching out to any stranger who has nothing in common with us. Azhi doesn’t deal with colleagues around him, but prefers to comment actively under the group posts, hoping to find friends who resonate. She thinks it may be easier to find someone who understands her in this circle of all social fears.We like this kind of relationship because we can easily choose people who are similar to ourselves and control the depth of the relationship.

However, the seemingly "I am the master" socialization has often become a reason to try, and it has also caused us to fall into deeper loneliness. Azhi told me with a little regret that she couldn’t find a suitable friend in the group because she asked to meet offline in the same city, and there were too few friends in the group who were willing to meet offline. She said with emotion, "If only I were in Beijing or Shanghai." Her solution is to walk around the streets more, "even if only people who feel real pass by me."

At this time, the seemingly compulsive kinship, geography or industry relationship has an indispensable value.It can make us stay in the same physical space with others for a long time, thus breeding a real connection. In the movie, the transformation of Zhenya comes from a new intern who falls from the sky. The leader assigned her to familiarize herself with the work with the interns, and they were forced to sit in the same cubicle all day, and Zhenya slowly softened up in resistance. She began to eat and chat with interns, untie the knot with her father, and tried to put her ear to the door of her new neighbor to listen to the noise in the room. Finally, the intern was leaving, and Zhenya confessed to her: "I hate being alone, but I have been pretending."

Between active and passive, "social degradation" seems to be an increasingly common choice. Will "socializing" get farther and farther away from us? Dong Chenyu thinks the situation is just the opposite. "Several scenic spots that are very popular this year, such as Zibo barbecue and Tianjin grandpa diving, are no longer traditional’ beautiful places’, but’ places where everyone is lively together’, which shows that everyone’s social desire is very strong." He thinks,"It’s not that we don’t want to socialize, but we want a more comfortable way to socialize."

(Bibliography: Cheng Boqing: Sociological Analysis of Contemporary Emotional System; Jonas Turner and Jane Stitz, Sociology of Emotion; Zheng Dandan: On Social Retreat; [Germany] Han Bingzhe: Burnout Society; Yan Fei: Penetration: Thinking Like a Sociologist)