Yao Huasong
With a variety of networks covering urban and rural areas, more and more people choose to install cameras in rural hometowns, the main purpose is to be able to observe and monitor the physical condition of the left-behind elderly in real time, in case something is found to be wrong, we can respond in time. Unlike in the past, children do not know much about the situation of the elderly, because the mentality of many elderly people is to report good news and not to worry, and do not want their children to worry.
This is not, after the National Day holiday returned to the spike, I bought two cameras for the first time, sent them home, and contacted the door to install. After the installation, I was very happy, even a little excited, I could see the situation in my hometown anytime and anywhere: what my parents were doing, there were a few dishes at lunch, did my father drink a little wine at dinner, did the chickens go into the hall to, the birds did not steal the grain, and the wild cats did not enter my chicken nest.
Whenever my parents pass by, I will find a relatively quiet across the camera and chat with them, I really feel the important role of high-tech products to meet my nostalgia, a small camera, so that in Guangzhou, Guangdong and in Huanggang, Hubei Province, my parents to achieve seamless connection, greatly facilitating the exchange and communication between us.
But within a few days, I noticed something was wrong.
The camera interferes with the normal life of parents to a certain extent. In the past, my mother would comb her hair in the yard for half an hour after getting up in the morning, and dressed relatively casually; now, my mother is less likely to appear in the yard in a dirty manner, and her clothes are relatively formal.
Behind the above inadvertent changes, behind the reflection of the camera's initial function - surveillance, the camera has become a technical control means and tools, monitoring any behavior of my parents, their daily life is recorded in the camera, their hands and feet and joys and sorrows, are under the eyes of my brother and me. They have to change the behavior habits they have been accustomed to for a lifetime, and appropriately correct the way of life they have been familiar with for a lifetime. With the camera, mom and dad became unnatural, unfree and uncomfortable. It is obviously a very cruel thing to let people who are in their old age live unnaturally, unfree and uncomfortable.
Here, we see the alienation of modern technology on the elderly, and the construction and shaping process of the behavior of the elderly.
The camera often disappointed mom because her hopes of "imagining" were nearly dashed. Since the installation of the camera, my mother will habitually look up at the camera in the yard, and even stay under the camera for a long time, she looks, and then walks, and then looks, and walks away, and my mother will repeat this action many times a day, and she will probably think: "At this moment, my eldest son, the eldest daughter-in-law, the second son, the second daughter-in-law, the three grandchildren and granddaughters are watching me?" Are you going to suddenly talk to me? If you talk and I'm not there, how bad it is. So I have to wait for you until you speak to me. ”
As a result, my mom waited, waited, we didn't speak up, we didn't interact with her because we were all busy with our own business. In other words, the camera gives her an assumption and an expectation — she can communicate with us at any time, but we can't fulfill her assumptions and expectations. Long-term hopeless expectation will undoubtedly increase the mother's sense of loss and deprivation.
The truth is that we want cameras, not parents. How much do we, as children, really accompany them? We were not available, we were busy with our business, so we chose to install cameras, but this was a stopgap measure, because most people simply can't spend time with their parents and take care of their families. On the surface, installing a camera is an act of filial piety, but it truly reflects the fact that we have not been able to do filial piety and serve our parents for a long time.
That is to say, the camera largely satisfies our needs to flaunt and maintain our identity as "filial piety", but it disproves the fact that we have been difficult to fulfill filial piety for a long time.
There may even be a view: "I've installed a camera, I can see what's going on at home, and I don't have to go home so often." ”
Obviously, this view is dirty and dangerous.
In our relationship with our elderly parents, money (sending money home) may not be the most important, but it is the most important thing to be honest and face-to-face with high-quality companionship, to give them more spiritual comfort, and to eliminate their loneliness. We ask ourselves, how many days of the year do we really spend with them? How many times did you hold hands with your mother after dinner? How many times have you talked to dad about drunk? I'm afraid there are very few. This kind of real companionship is irreplaceable by many cameras.
(The author is an associate professor at the Department of Sociology, Guangzhou University)
Editor-in-Charge: Shen Bin