Text | Wang Yan
Annual song listening report, annual bill payment, annual movie summary... At the beginning of 2022, the circle of friends was once again brushed by the annual summary report of each platform. At the time of the old and the new, the annual reports of different platforms seem to be becoming a rather ritualistic behavior. A little on the screen, accompanied by familiar background music, the life of the past year is picked up from the depths of memory. What does the annual summary report reveal behind the screen?
The annual summary is still essentially an application of big data information, and the information is connected with personal feelings and life through a visual way, constructing a digital life scene, so that individuals and platforms have an emotional connection. Today, people want to show a more comprehensive version of themselves through dynamic postings in circles of friends, communities, and virtual spaces, rather than simply becoming an avatar or nickname. However, relying solely on the Internet, it is difficult to understand a person clearly and comprehensively.
App's annual report is trying to describe each individual in the form of data and information, and what it presents is a living person after breaking through the information barrier. For example, as mentioned in the listening report of a certain platform, on a certain day of a certain month, this music makes you cycle the single all day, and presumably there will be something unforgettable that day. The annual report is an intuitive and generalized presentation of a large amount of data, and the data is objective. We can't embellish an annual report with deliberate behavior that allows us to see the more authentic individuals behind the faces of the Internet.
Now, with the annual summary, the image of the individual has more labels. At the same time, in many annual reports, individuals are no longer individuals on the Internet alone, but individuals tied to the entire information chain. "You listen to songs for more than 50% of the country's users" "You and the other 20% of readers choose the same book." The annual report allows users to connect beyond mobile phones and computers, hobbies, lifestyles... A series of keywords group netizens into communities and make people find a sense of belonging.
Even though we have thousands of Internet "friends", people living under the Internet are still lonely. The Internet cuts down the opportunities and possibilities of face-to-face interaction, and the relationship between the individual and society becomes alienated. In addition, online communication that lacks psychic communication and expression interaction is often difficult to push the heart. The annual summary is a portrait of the individual, and people expect themselves to appear fuller on the Internet platform. Today, most of people spend their time online. Long-term online life makes the real feeling of communication more precious. People crave to be understood, not to be forgotten in the depths of the internet space.
Internet social platforms break down the spatial barriers between people and make communication simple. The transmission of feelings is achieved through a line of code, but electronic devices and network language cannot truly reflect people's speech and behavior and joys and sorrows, and the sense of truth is inseparable from face-to-face communication. Today, work and life take place on the Internet platform, and people need to be understood even more. Therefore, the annual summary report seems to add complete details to each of us individually. When we interact with people in the same space as full individuals, perhaps the loneliness brought to us by the Internet will be reduced. Feelings with temperature are even more precious in the Internet space. At the same time, the real interaction of true feelings is irreplaceable by the Internet. Flesh-and-blood people need to step on that solid piece of "soil" in the tide of the Internet age.
Data is platform, and life is its own. When the annual summary report brushes the screen, we may as well be a little more calm. The personal image depicted through the algorithm is always indispensable to distortion, and how to make the personal image more complete in the context of the Internet platform may be more worth considering.
Text: Wang Yan
Column moderator: Zhang Yongqun
Editor-in-charge: Wang Zimo
Editor: Wang Yuanfang, Zhang Yongqun