In my daily life, my cell phone is turned on and in my pocket 24/7. The first thing I do when I wake up is check
my WeChat before I do anything else. Having my cell phone with me makes me feel connected. I have become so
attached to it that anxious if I am without it, because I feel like I might be missing something important. And WeChat
is the most frequently used application in my daily life. It is my guilty pleasure. I check it every time I grab my cell
phone. WeChat is entertaining and keeps me updated with not only my friends, but celebrities, politicians, schools, etc.
but it is also bring me anxiety. I find social software like WeChat need people add profile such as phone number or
address, and data security is a big problem in the moment. And the function called Moment just like the track of
users’ whole life, this make me very anxious, because your life just has been digitized, and everybody can see it. But
it is not the biggest problem, and there are some other things make me anxiety.
As over five years since WeChat was launched we have seen a lot of viral spread among Chinese people. There
seems are some positive connections between users and WeChat. I believe we can use Dependency Theory to explain
it. There is a functionality named Official Accounts, and the variety of articles on it shows a Pseudo-Environment to
us. We learn information actively from this environment, and the WeChat is the door to this environment. Without the
WeChat, the way we gain information would drastically different. To put it simply, we need WeChat, which is the
reason why it spread like virus. However, the Pseudo-Environment is not the mirror to realistic environment; it is the
environment which contains the processed and selected information from variety mediums, and all those information
which like pieces of glass have entered all the Pseudo-Environment, but it is hard to sort the good information from
the bad. Here is the question, I think the fragmentation of information make people being sciolistic. The Social
Cognition Theory said people like to add tags for things they met. I think there are three kinds of people, the first one
is people will be very careful for avoiding making the wrong decisions when he know nothing; the second one is
people have known a little knowledge, and they do not understand them, so they will be careful, too; the last one is
people have known a little knowledge, but they think they can do far more than retaining knowledge, they will be
confidence on making decision. I think the third level is just like add tags to our life, and I think it is very dangerous.
Being sciolistic is essentially like polarized thinking which makes people being emotional and having no critical
thinking, time-space thinking and probabilistic thinking; that makes people being changeless, and it is the reason why
I say it is dangerous.
People need system learning rather than fragmentation of information to think more comprehensive. There also
have too many comments for each news from others, and it is hard to tell good from bad. From Magic Bullet Theory
we can know that all those comments from mediums have such magic power to influence us, and media makes us
passively accept knowledge. I think all those processed and selected information from media is one of the reason of
the gradual loss of thinking capacity. However, from another perspective, individual is hard to use media for changing
things like public opinion, I think we can use Limited Effects Theories to explain it; for example, a person who stand
at the central of a media storm is hard to clear themselves through media. This is an interesting phenomenon, two
different theories seems conflict each other. We should consider about where we stand in the media ecology, and
according to Schramm’s Model of Mass Communication we seems have disadvantages in the model, and I think it is
a horrible thing, because it seems like the media controls our life, and except these media software we have no way to
gain information.
In order to solve these questions, I think the most important thing is the rule of media, and the rules should be
more specific. But the main purpose of all those media companies is to make a profit, non-profit media company is
very necessary for the society. The information spread through media company should be just and comprehensive. We
still have a long way to go.
Through these two days, I find I rely on media for everything, and it affects me personally in a lot of ways. And I
believe there are lots of people rely on media as I did. Although it does a lot of good for me by letting me keep in
touch with friends and family, easily listening to my favorite music and watch videos, and teaching me new things
that I learn about on WeChat or other medias, the media can also do a lot of bad. This paper just contains some
perspectives of my thoughts after I create a media log. There is much more to the thoughts than I have space to
explain here, sorry about that.
Media Log
Monday, April, 25th, 2016.
Time
Dura
tion
Mediu
m
Intention
Context
Notes
3:30AM
150min
Baidu
To search mathematical
problems and study new
knowledge
Just get up, sitting at the table
and recall what I have learned at
last mathematical lesson.
It is useful for me to
understand better with these
knowledges.
6:00AM
20min
ZAKER,
Zhihu
To get news and some
information which I interested in,
and releasing myself for
sleeping
Lying in bed, and prepare for
sleeping I hope I can sleep 10
minutes before 6:45AM.
It is useless for my study, but
I think knowing news is
necessary for us.
6:45AM
15min
Neatease
Cloud
I can enjoy the music when I
take a shower
I am taking a shower.
Listening music can relax my
mind during my shower time
current news
