Social group portraits embedded in the digital world

"Counting: A Documentary on the Digital Lives of Ordinary People", edited by Digital Wilderness Studio, Nanfang Daily Press, March 2022 edition

Digitalization is undoubtedly one of the most important forces affecting human social life in this era. Its most revolutionary innovation is that it can reconnect the various elements of the material world divided by the separation of time and space with network technology. In this digital world born of the network technology series, there are countless digital social group portraits.

My digital little world

When I was studying in Macao, I participated in classes, group discussions and academic lectures from home and abroad through zoom, Tencent conferences, WeChat and other online channels, and obtained some knowledge and life entertainment information through video platforms such as B station and YouTube. In life, WeChat videos connect me with my family members in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan. In my spare time, I also made some small videos and uploaded them to the WeChat video account to share interesting facts about my study life with Station B and netizens.

My own school life is a node, or a "cell," in this vast digital world. Each individual embedded in the digital world has his own miniature digital small world, and the entire digital world is formed by these miniature digital cells connected by network technology. "Counting: Digital Documentary of Ordinary People" allowed me to jump out of my own digital world and see the digital life of different groups in Chinese society today.

Social group portraits in the digital world

"Counting: Digital Documentary of Ordinary People" uses the technique of white painting to outline 41 digital small worlds. The 41 stories cover a very wide range of groups. It not only focuses on the digital life of Chinese, but also involves many foreigners; there are wild code farmers who study their own programs, as well as doctoral personnel in different fields; in addition to the digital life of young and middle-aged people, the elderly and children are also the objects of its attention; the most touching thing is that this digital group portrait also contains the digital life and network dreams of blind people. Just like my own small digital world, different individuals are embedded in the digital world in different ways, content, and purposes. These 41 stories describe the process of embedding social individuals into the digital world from five aspects.

The first part covers jobs and careers in the digital world. When the Internet becomes a new development opportunity, it not only becomes the job goal that everyone aspires to, but also creates new opportunities for the working lives of different individuals. Driven by the development of the Internet, the wide range of mini program demands provides opportunities for many non-science-born programmers to realize their programming dreams. Former office janitors and carpenters eventually started their own companies by teaching themselves programming to form a team. From these inspirational experiences, we see that the dream-making myth of the Internet can also be realized in the low-level personnel. Such dreams are also reflected in blind programmers, who not only realize their programming dreams through the Internet, but also bring the Internet world into the world of blind people. Some people are proud of their own promotion, making a small town in the northeast the first area to popularize QR code payment. In addition, veterans are not willing to accept the original career path, and take other veterans to use the business opportunities brought by the Internet to start a business, in order to change the original life path. A small paper mill was able to dominate the market because of its electronic operation model.

In addition, the further penetration of the Internet in the field of life and culture has also provided new space for different individuals to survive and develop. Female PhDs who cannot go to Hong Kong for a PhD due to the epidemic have become a member of the majority of takeaway groups in order to survive. Survival was maintained, but after working with male-dominated delivery workers for a long time, female doctors themselves gradually "dailyized" and slowly learned the "Japanese Japanese" of male delivery workers. For "digital gig workers," the digital world gives them the opportunity to be their own bosses and work only for themselves. However, in order to maintain long-term interaction with the audience, the reality that they only work for themselves is not as free as imagined.

Finally, the development of Internet technology has also penetrated into the governance work of the country. Under the epidemic situation, the smooth operation of China's "code" anti-epidemic model relies on the full operation of the technical team and the continuous optimization and upgrading of the back-end system. The working mode of the grid members who leave early and return late also relies on a unique network system. Both are small nodes in China's digital governance network.

The second part tells the process of the digital world further infiltrating from the central region to the periphery of the work and life of different groups. Once a young person who was a "small town problem maker", after entering the university, he met like-minded friends, created his own Internet entrepreneurial dream from campus life, and promoted the digitalization process of campus life. However, in China's Internet field, giant companies have long occupied the pattern of market dominance, and they are also struggling to find new development space. Channels such as public accounts and online consultation brought by the Internet have allowed people in small towns to avoid acquaintance space to find an entrance to seek psychological counseling, and many parents want to find the final "antidote" to solve the problem of adolescents from here.

When the digital society entered the countryside, the doctor of agronomy saw a new opportunity to change the revitalization of the countryside. For many rural women whose value and beauty are obscured in their daily lives, they can regain some complete autonomy and individuality in the live broadcast space. Not only does the live broadcast bring them some extra income, but it also allows them to show themselves in the live broadcast and experience the highlight moments that are praised. For the disabled, they can only live dependent on their families due to their physical inadequacy. Despite their best efforts to show their usefulness, they still suffered from blindness and discrimination. Live broadcasting into rural life not only gives them the hope of relying on their own independence to make a living, but more importantly, they can meet people with common encounters through online platforms and become a source of happiness and strength for each other. The uniqueness of cliff village has made it once a strange landscape of poverty in modern China, attracting the curiosity and attention of many netizens. Many young people in cliff village take this opportunity to earn income by showing the wonders of cliff village to the majority of netizens on the live broadcast platform. With the intervention of the government, the wonders of Liangshan in the live broadcast platform have gradually shifted from selling poverty to creating a beautiful life after poverty alleviation.

Following the attention of the takeaway workers trapped in the system, truck drivers have also become one of the important groups that are intertwined with the data platform. Truck drivers rely on the data platform to obtain orders, and the platform can target truck drivers according to the route information of the truck drivers obtained. The intervention of the data platform has disintegrated the initiative of truck drivers in transaction negotiations, making them gradually weaken into a passive laborer who undertakes transportation tasks. The measures of installing a monitoring system in the cab implemented in some areas not only increase the economic burden of truck drivers, but also have a certain impact on the work and life of truck drivers due to problems such as inaccurate monitoring. At the same time, relying on platforms such as WeChat and live broadcasting, the cardite group has continuously expanded their degree of self-organization, and the interaction and mutual assistance between members of the association have been increasing. With self-organizing associations of a certain scale, they can rely on the strength of the group to carry out collective debt collection, mutual assistance in life and legal aid, etc., and rely on the strength of group self-organization to solve various difficulties encountered in life and work. As the president of the Truck Association established his own transport logistics company to meet the needs of some cardholders among his own people, the Truck Association achieved a transformation from virtual solidarity to practical solidarity to solidarity economy.

The third part is about the different exciting effects of digital media and platforms after they enter the lives of people of different ages. With the blessing of the vigorous improvement of network technology and storage technology, the bank's business handling model has realized the transformation process from offline to online. When banks began to widely implement the online business model, for many elderly people who could not go to the bank to handle business in person, they could also complete the affairs they needed to handle online like young people, without having to be present in person. When online shopping, WeChat, QR codes and other network devices that seem to be exclusive to young people have become the mainstream of the times, the interaction between the elderly and these devices is full of various scenes such as cuteness, nostalgia and arrogance. When she was young, she received various advanced commendations, but because of the obstruction of the QR code in the mall, she secretly retreated to the side, and even set up a flag of "never use a smartphone" to compete with this digital age that was not friendly to her. In the end, due to the epidemic prevention requirements, she had to fill out a form in WeChat every day to report her temperature, so that the grandmother asked her granddaughter to eat KFC in exchange for her granddaughter to teach herself to use a smart phone. And those who know how to use these trendy things have become the darlings of the elderly group, and the grandfather who uses online shopping channels to buy fishing rods has won the envy of his peers, and since then he has become an online shopping agent for elderly friends. The most touching thing is that the original intention of a grandmother to install WeChat was to talk to her deceased wife. Although she did not achieve this wish, she eventually established a video interaction with her granddaughter, which largely compensated for her loneliness after losing her wife. However, smartphone training classes for the elderly in the community show the unfriendly side of the digital age for the elderly. The digital payment method of scanning code payment in the classroom has difficulted many elderly people, although the elderly use smart phones, they are still deeply troubled by mobile phone caton, insufficient memory and other problems. Under the impact of digital media, traditional print newspapers are also difficult to maintain the service of continuous delivery of newspapers to the community, leaving only the elderly who are anxiously waiting but have no newspaper to read. When the elderly who sell vegetables do not use the two-dimensional code to collect money, the income they get from selling vegetables goes into the pockets of their children. In this scenario, the development of technology has become a tool to promote intergenerational exploitation.

In fact, in addition to the elderly, young people will also face the problem of struggling with the digital world. A mother of three children chose to resign to educate her children at home in order to compete with her mobile phone for her children's learning and education time. In the end, the mother gave up the method of completely isolating her child from her mobile phone and reached a reconciliation with the digital world. On the one hand, she is anxious because of her children's excessive addiction to the online world, and on the other hand, she is relieved that her children have obtained unique and systematic film and television information in the online world. And some other parents, although lamenting that mobile phones hurt their children, the online world has become the only place for these parents to get some relaxation and pleasure in their difficult daily lives, and it is difficult for them to reduce their children's dependence on mobile phones by leading by example. Young girls who have lost love in the real world choose to place a single "virtual boyfriend" on the Internet to soothe their wounded hearts, they are very aware of the virtuality of this service, but they still use it as a temporary object of conversation. A man who provides "virtual boyfriend" services realizes the impact of this modeled job on his true emotions in the process of continuously providing services, and eventually quits the industry. For overseas students during the epidemic, digital networks have become the only channel for their study and life. Take online classes, participate in group discussions and graduation ceremonies online, and rely on online platforms to source supplies and stay connected and interact with your family. Although the impact of the epidemic has made most interactions across the screen, this screen has also spawned different touching and contradictory moments.

The fourth part deals with the connections between indigenous cultures and the digital world. With the improvement of China's international status, China's traditional culture has also become a symbol of pride for many young people. However, in daily life, it is difficult to find traces of traditional culture. Those professionals who have a special love for traditional Chinese culture eventually transplant traditional culture into the world of games, making it a normalized and living cultural landscape in the world of games. In different games, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the flying sky with rock colors replace the dominance of Western elements in the game world. Since then, the game industry has also had the type of Chinese style. For those young ethnic minorities living in border areas, digital carriers such as live broadcasts, small videos and film and television broadcast platforms have become the main medium for them to understand other cultures on the one hand, and through these media, they can establish connections with their own cultures in different places, and they can also immerse themselves in the cultural atmosphere of their own ethnic groups in a "presence" manner in foreign lands. For the Bai people in Dali Jianchuan, platforms such as live broadcasts and small videos have become a new space for them to "revive" the traditional Bai folk song as a cultural activity.

As e-sports games become more professional and competitive, the stigma of some video games in China has been slowly removed. After the development of e-sports as an independent industry, it has become an ideal place for many video game enthusiasts. In a technical college in Guangzhou, the "bad boys" who used to be regarded as "unlearned and addicted to games" have found a space to fight for their dreams here. Here, playing games as a hobby becomes a profession, and for some people there is less fun and more pressure to strive for excellence. For some, it's a drill ground for them to train behind the scenes. However, not all people who love video games have an esports dream. In another story, we see that in most cases, the group of teenagers addicted to video games is mainly children in the middle and high school stages. From this perspective, esports games are just a space for these stressed kids to escape from negative intergenerational relationships and a real society full of infighting. And in this space, in the special setting of the game, they can get a sensory experience like smoking opium.

The fifth part deals with the digital society and the transnational spread of Chinese culture. Japanese language teachers who have been forced to come to China due to economic difficulties are constantly being localized in their working and living life in China, and they regard China as a country where their value can be realized. Teachers spread Japanese language and Japanese culture to Chinese students in online classes, but their lifestyle is constantly Sinicized, "can drink, love spicy, and stay up late." A freelance director also from Japan, as a son-in-law in Nanjing, spreads Chinese food, culture, and Japanese cuisine and life in China through documentaries and live broadcasts. A foodie from the United Kingdom who loves Sichuan cuisine has traveled to the most authentic Sichuan restaurants in Chengdu. During the epidemic period, she will share Chinese recipes in the circle of friends as a kind of spiritual sustenance, and at the same time send her own Chinese vegetarian meals to the epidemic prevention personnel and taste the Chinese dishes she made for her neighbors. As a foodie who labels his diet and taste buds as "Chinese", he invisibly spreads Chinese food culture in his daily life. The French girl who loves the full life atmosphere of Shanghai's old streets has continuously recorded and disseminated the local life culture of Shanghai during her wandering in shanghai's old town. She is planning to develop her wandering program into an international tourism project to attract more foreigners to wander, experience and observe Shanghai culture. At the same time, China's young people are also constantly going overseas, spreading Chinese-made products overseas. Young people who went to Nigeria to sell Laptops made in China quickly occupied the market by outperforming other brands of computers, only to lose to later maintenance problems. After the failure of the notebook business, the big brother set up an African version of the "chain home" in the local area, bringing China's rental market culture to Nigeria. In addition to China's business model, along with their arrival in Nigeria is the management culture of Chinese companies. As a "bridging group", these people spread Chinese culture to all parts of the world with their own unique ways, elements and feelings.

epilogue

"Numbers: Digital Documentary of Ordinary People" is a documentary book created by non-fiction writers, young scholars, and practitioners in the field of science and technology. From it, we can see the portraits of digital groups stitched together from 41 different digital stories. This way of showing the benefits and problems brought about by the development of China's digital society through individual life experience, paying special attention to the subjectivity of social individuals and social development, from which we can see the diversity and polysolithism of digital society. This presentation gives the concept of digital society a richer experience in content and life perception, and allows readers to understand the meaning of digital society for different individuals from these rich experience descriptions.

At the same time, these empirical stories are the product of different authors, deeply influenced by subjective factors such as their own attitudes towards digital society. In fact, from these 41 stories, we can also see that different authors have different cognitions and attitudes towards digital life. For most authors, their digital characters or digital society are a positive, advanced and beautiful state, which shows that they see digital life and digital society as an inevitable good form of social life. In addition, some authors reflect on social issues such as the "digital divide", "intergenerational exploitation within the family" and "family education dilemma" brought about by this process by presenting the digital process of society. Some authors have pointed out that there is no problem with digitization, the problem lies in the concept of digitalization, just as there is no problem with games, and it is our game concept that is wrong. Some authors also point out that the process of mediating ethnic minority cultures is not unique to the digital age, in fact, in different eras, people will find corresponding media to spread their own culture. This is another unique feature that "There Are Numbers: Digital Documentaries of Ordinary People" brings to the reader, not only presenting the diversity of the story, but also the author group's own very diverse attitudes towards the empirical phenomenon of the digital process. In the process of reading, the reader can engage in dialogue with a diverse group of authors through diverse empirical phenomena.

Finally, digitalization is clearly an inevitable trend of the times. Criticizing and denying its essence obviously has little significance in improving its development trend, and singing praises for it will not help to lead it to the goal of "for human development". We look forward to the emergence of more works based on the empirical world, as well as extensive discussions in all sectors of society based on empirical facts, on the basis of which we can reach the greatest consensus on how to better promote China's digitalization process, and then serve the goal of science and technology for good.