Editor's note
During the period of social transformation, family relationships and intergenerational relationships often become the focus of public attention. Under the "spotlight" of new media, intergenerational differences and conflicts are also infinitely magnified. Intergenerational relations are the epitome of social relations. At a time of rapid economic and social development, paying attention to intergenerational relationships is conducive to promoting mutual understanding among various groups and promoting social harmony and progress. How do the younger and older generations have different perceptions and views on family, society, and culture? What are the salient features of current intergenerational relations? What is the deep-seated reason behind it? What possibilities does digitalization provide for intergenerational communication? This reporter conducted an in-depth investigation.
What major in university?
Stay in a big city or go back to your hometown after graduation?
When will you be married?
Scientific parenting or empirical parenting?
Do your parents know about the online circle you like?
Will you open the health information forwarded by the elders?
These problems that are scattered in everyone's life are not easy to deal with. They involve the emotional maintenance of a family or even two groups, and also affect the harmony and harmony of the entire society.
Intergenerational relationship refers to the relationship between two or more generations in the process of social development.
Due to differences in social situations and cultural concepts, people of different ages have complex relationships with coexistence of cooperation and conflict, solidarity and alienation.
With the development of economy and society, the improvement of family living standards and the wide application of Internet technology, intergenerational conflicts frequently occur in real life and the online world.
1. The reality and the network are intertwined, and the intergenerational relationship presents new characteristics
1. The choice at the practical level, there is a difference between the two generations
Studying, working, living... issues involving personal growth and development, family members are used to discussing together to "make up their minds".
But many times, the communication is not so smooth.
Study, employment, whoever listens to.
"My father is a middle school teacher. Since elementary school, I have been tutoring in winter and summer vacations, and I rarely go out to play. After I was admitted to university, my parents urged me to hurry up to prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination. I didn't want to just bury myself in studying every day. Since then, The relationship with them has always been tense." The 26-year-old Xiao Gao admitted that his parents' blind pursuit of grades and high-intensity management had caused him a lot of psychological pressure and even developed a feeling of weariness.
Xiao Gao's experience is not an exception.
Many young people say that their parents like to control their lives.
Xiaoqiu graduated from a well-known college and has never let his parents worry about his studies since he was a child.
When looking for a job, she did not follow her parents' persuasion, but entered a cultural communication company to do new media planning.
"I like novel and interesting jobs. It's awkward for me to sit in the office every day and go step by step." But every time I go home from vacation, my parents always tell her that a relative's child has been admitted to a civil service or a public institution, trying to make her "change her mind." ".
"I have been raising my child for so many years, but I have not found a stable job or entered a big company. The post-90s have become network anchors, short video ups, copywriting planning, etc. These choices are difficult to be accepted and understood by the older generation.
The differences in views on marriage, love, and fertility have plagued two generations.
"As long as I call my mother, she always urges me to find a partner and let me get married before the age of 30, not to be 'leftover' like my neighbor's sister." After graduating from a master's degree, the 27-year-old Ms. Hou came to work in other provinces. , is currently single, in order to urge her to get married, her mother lived in the place where Ms. Hou lived for half a year last year: "She thought I didn't care about her own affairs, we had a few fights, she got angry and went back, and I didn't go back to my hometown. New Years."
There are more young people who choose to marry later or not, which makes it difficult for the older generation to understand.
In the interview, "thirty years old" is an age that is frequently mentioned.
Many parents hope that their children can get married before this time and live a stable family life earlier.
Ms. Li, who has retired, said: "I don't expect my child to achieve much, I just hope that he can get married soon. But as long as he mentioned this matter, he hung up the phone with a perfunctory sentence." Many people adopted verbal supervision and arranged blind dates. They tried to convey the traditional attitude towards marriage and love to their children, but the effect was not ideal.
In addition to the different views on marriage and love, reproductive choices have also become a topic that is prone to disputes between generations.
"The work pressure is so high that I can't take care of myself, and I really have no spare time to raise children." "We had two children at that time, but we still didn't raise them? It's not as hard as you are now." Conflicts caused by marriage, love and childbirth make families The warmth of the people has been diluted, and new troubles have arisen between generations.
How to raise young children, causing disagreements.
"The doctor told me that children like to sweat, so they need to change clothes in a timely manner. But the elderly always worry that the child will catch a cold, so they pack three layers and three layers. We have a lot of quarrels for this." Ms. Zhou, 34, often because of children The details of care are at odds with parents.
"Do you want to eat until you're full, or feed in moderation?" "Do you work and rest regularly, or sleep naturally when you're sleepy?" "Do you spoil your children, or set up rules early"... The current younger generation is mostly dual-career families, and the proportion of grandparents involved in childcare is high. , different parenting concepts have become a major content of intergenerational conflict.
The older generation often continues the tradition of personal parenting, more with experience; the younger generation is good at acquiring knowledge from the Internet and learning modern parenting concepts.
Experience parenting is still scientific parenting, which leads to conflicting concepts and poor communication, causing conflicts between two generations.
2. Intergenerational conflict spreads from reality to network
With the accelerated process of digitization, all age groups have access to the Internet, and the intergenerational conflicts in daily life are gradually spreading online.
"The development of new media has provided a more convenient platform for intergenerational conflicts, and some originally hidden issues have been made public." said Ju Xiaoyan, associate professor of the Department of Social Work at China Youth University for Political Science.
Due to the anonymity of the Internet and its strong emotional appeal, some common topic discussions have also been rendered as intergenerational conflicts between the two groups.
The online behavior preferences of the two generations are different.
"My parents are easy to make a fuss. Sometimes I post personal feelings in the Moments, and they call me right away to ask if something happened to me recently. To avoid misunderstandings, I can only block them." The younger generation likes to socialize The media shared their personal life dynamics. Many people chose to "block" or "block" their elders because they were worried that their elders would not recognize their way of life.
The older generation prefers to forward articles on health preservation and "chicken soup for the soul", but this kind of information is regarded as redundant and burdensome by the younger generation, and they are afraid to avoid it.
The different topics of concern between generations not only increase the possibility of misunderstandings, but also reduce the frequency of communication.
Several elders reflected: "When you send a message to your child, he usually replies 'OK', 'I know it', and rarely tells us about her own affairs." "My daughter usually calls us once a week to ask how our health is, and other issues. She spoke more perfunctorily, and we didn't ask much about it."
Network communication is blocked.
"I refuted the health-care rumors forwarded by the elders in the family WeChat group. Instead of believing me, they removed me from the group chat and continued to forward those rumors. It makes people laugh and cry." Some young netizens said that the elders told themselves His persuasion was very repulsive, "I always feel that my relatives will harm him."
Ms. Song, who just learned to use a smartphone, said: "Sometimes when I encounter something that I can't understand, I want to ask my child, but he is a little impatient, saying that we don't understand anything, so don't mess with and forward things on the Internet. "Many older generations are more willing to turn to friends of the same age for help, or believe in information sharing from strangers, creating barriers between generations for information exchange and communication.
The younger generation transfers dissatisfaction to the web.
"How to adjust my mentality after being abused by my parents" "My parents are always suppressing me, and I have become more and more taciturn"... The Douban "Original Family Resistance Association" group has more than 12,000 members, who have confided or reflected on their relationship with their parents.
Every holiday, there will be a lot of discussions on social media about "how to fight relatives" and "how to fight wits and courage with 'tricky' elders", which resonates with many young netizens. Such topics are often reposted and commented in large numbers. .
Younger groups such as "post-90s" and "post-00s" have long been immersed in the Internet and have more technological and information advantages than their elders.
At the same time, the users of social media are mainly young people, and their impression of the online group of the elderly is more negative.
The elderly have become a "vulnerable group" in the digital space and lack the awareness and channels to speak out.
2. The multi-dimensional causes behind the intergenerational conflict deserve attention
Intergenerational relationships are understood differently.
"We don't understand the child's work, and we are very worried that he will not have a good life. Every time we want to inquire, the child will be annoyed without saying a few words." , from study to work, they are not satisfied with anything." Expecting to understand and expecting to understand are like two sides of a coin, reflecting the different views of two generations on intergenerational relations.
Liu Wenrong, a researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the differences in life cycle, era experience, and standpoints of the younger generation and the older generation make it inevitable that there will be conflicts in intergenerational relations.
The younger generation grew up in an era of abundant material resources and advocated an independent life. While "filial piety" to their elders, they also hoped to have an equal intergenerational relationship, such as mutual respect and understanding in values and lifestyles. On this basis Communicate and communicate, not just "smooth".
However, many older generations often regard children as a continuation of their own values, and design their children's study, work or life from their own perspective.
After the child is an adult, he is still reluctant to give up the responsibility of education and guidance, and tries to continue to restrain or control the child.
One side is "flying its wings", and the other side is still "holding on tight", and poor communication and even conflict are unavoidable.
Intergenerational boundaries are unclear, and they are too involved in each other.
"Buying a house is a down payment from my parents. Sometimes it costs a lot and I can't make enough money. My parents will also give me money." Many children still need financial and living care from their parents after working and starting a family. A large number of phenomena such as "old age" and "intergenerational dependence" exist.
In addition, the older generation participates in the childcare of the younger generation, the elderly sacrifice their retirement life to help take care of their children and the next generation, and “three generations live under one roof” are everywhere.
The unclear boundaries and excessive involvement in economics and life make it difficult for the two generations to grasp the scale and scale when they get along with each other, and it is easy to produce excessive protection and excessive interference.
Independence in economy and life complicates the emotional relationship between children and their parents.
"In psychology, there is a concept called self-differentiation, which is used to measure the degree of emotional separation between children and parents. Individuals with relatively well-differentiated self-differentiation can maintain a balance between autonomy and intimacy with the previous generation. A normal family relationship can also achieve comfortable living. On the contrary, the intergenerational relationship will fluctuate repeatedly between control and escape." Ju Xiaoyan said.
The changes of the times have made the social concepts of different generations differentiated.
With the acceleration of social transformation, different generations have different understandings of "life events" such as marriage and career.
Taking marriage as an example, in the eyes of the older generation, marriage is an important social norm, which contains multiple symbolic meanings such as life security, offspring reproduction, and moral transmission.
If children marry late or do not marry, the entire family will face pressure from public opinion.
In the eyes of the younger generation, the individual significance of marriage is higher than the social significance. They pay attention to personal emotional experience, believe that "this is their own business and has nothing to do with others", and they are more cautious about marriage choices.
In the case of different concepts and different meanings, intergenerational communication can easily become "self-talk" or tit-for-tat.
Behind the discussions on these topics is the contest between the two generations for the right to speak in society.
Deviations in the acquisition of cultural resources lead to intergenerational cultural collisions.
The younger generation obtains cultural resources from the vast Internet, becomes the main cultural consumer, and constructs a series of cultural contexts and discourse symbols.
In the face of rapid social development and cultural changes, most of the older generation can only passively adapt.
In the cultural collision, the intergenerational dialogue space and the meaning of common knowledge are compressed.
As digital natives, the younger generation has developed various network subcultures, such as "two-dimensional" culture, "fan" culture, "spoof" culture, etc., which are generally entertaining and critical.
The older generation is relatively traditional and conservative in terms of cultural choices, making it difficult to adapt to or accept online subcultures.
For example, some young people use the "mourning" culture as a means of expressing their emotions, but they are reprimanded by their elders as negative and non-mainstream.
"I just change a spoof or a little 'mourning' avatar, my parents will think that my mentality is not sunny, and it is useless to explain, and later they are too lazy to say it." In this context, young people choose to be in the subculture circle. Seeking resonance and solace, deliberately clarifying cultural boundaries, making the cultural circle between generations more and more closed.
Internet algorithm recommendations and "traffic" logic catalyze and amplify intergenerational conflicts.
In the new media environment, the algorithmic recommendation mechanism carries out personalized communication for users. Due to the differences in education level, interests and preferences between the two generations, the information they receive is not the same.
The differentiated information environment makes the information shared between generations less and less, which increases the difficulty of interaction between the two groups, and their respective "information cocoons" become more and more stable.
In addition, some platforms and accounts deliberately create conflicting topics, label intergenerational relationships, etc., in order to "attract attention" to "attract money".
They use some news about the elderly or young people to create false intergenerational conflicts by deliberately distorting narratives, exaggerating rhetoric and other "words", so as to harvest "traffic" and make intergenerational conflicts a kind of consumption that can be consumed. commodity.
For example, some self-media accounts selectively ignore positive news about the elderly, deliberately highlight incidents that a very small number of the elderly violate social morality, and use irritating words when spreading, creating audiences through "headline parties" and fake news The stereotype of "old man bear" causes the younger generation to have "abstract anger" towards the older generation, which in turn leads to irrational emotional expressions.
3. Digitization provides platforms and possibilities for smooth intergenerational relations
On August 31, the China Internet Network Information Center released the 50th "Statistical Report on the Development of China's Internet". As of June 2022, the number of Internet users in my country was 1.051 billion, and the proportion of Internet users using mobile phones to access the Internet reached 99.6%.
The Internet has become an important public discourse space, which provides a new platform for intergenerational communication and dialogue, and presents new possibilities for intergenerational interaction.
Promote friendly intergenerational relationships.
The implementation of the "Family Education Promotion Law" has provided strong support for the promotion of harmonious family relations, and the policy should be further implemented in detail.
Liu Wenrong called for further research on intergenerational relations and family relations, and from the perspective of social development, to promote the establishment of friendly intergenerational relations.
Strengthen the popularization of psychological education and psychological knowledge, so that individuals can better understand the differences with other groups, and can positively view and deal with intergenerational relations.
Cultivate more non-profit service organizations, and provide psychological counseling services, relationship communication and mediation to those in need.
Ju Xiaoyan suggested that both the younger and older generations should improve their communication skills and intergenerational relationship handling skills.
Emotionally, learn to empathize and put yourself in each other's shoes; in behavior, improve independence and maintain proper boundaries, so that you can not only gain a warm and safe intimate relationship, but also respect each other in terms of values and lifestyles, reducing intergenerational conflict.
Give full play to the social cohesion of excellent traditional culture.
The Internet and artificial intelligence technology have provided a new path for the inheritance, transformation, development and utilization of excellent traditional culture, and also opened up a new space for the cultural integration of different groups.
In recent years, a large number of programs promoting excellent traditional culture have been broadcast on multiple platforms, which has aroused the pursuit and heated discussion of the younger generation.
It is necessary to further innovate the integrated communication of traditional culture, let more young people have an immersive experience, internalize fine traditions into their own behaviors, and provide a "cultural community" for intergenerational dialogue and communication.
Social entities make concerted efforts to bridge the "digital divide" and expand the space for dialogue.
As the user base of social media continues to expand, humorous "expression packs" and playful catchphrases have also become popular among the older generation. Many people are very interested in it and actively learn and use it.
However, there are still many elderly people who are still afraid of difficulties and panic. We should help them change their mindsets and cognitive biases and adapt to digital life.
The needs of all social groups should be taken into account, the inclusiveness of digital product and service design should be improved, and attention should be paid to aging-appropriate transformation.
In terms of skills, carry out digital skills training to help the older generation improve the proficiency and frequency of using digital products.
In terms of literacy, improve their ability to discriminate against online rumors, false information, and online fraud, and promote the social integration of the elderly.
Promote "cultural feedback" and build a communication platform.
Pay attention to the important role of "cultural feedback" in eliminating intergenerational conflicts.
Build online and offline platforms that are conducive to intergenerational interaction and communication.
On the online side, Internet companies are encouraged to develop forums, community groups, applications, etc., to build a digital platform for intergenerational communication, so that the two generations can "have some chat" and "can chat".
Offline, youth and senior groups, communities, etc., can regularly hold activities to open small and micro classrooms for emotional communication. Volunteers provide youth with counseling and services in employment, marriage and love, so that the two generations can help each other to inspire recognition and resonance.
Strengthen network supervision, and seriously deal with the behavior of "harvesting" intergenerational conflict traffic.
Some online "keyboard warriors" deliberately elevate individual conflicts to intergenerational conflicts, and some platforms and self-media accounts over-exaggerate intergenerational conflicts in order to attract attention. Such behaviors are concealed, but have a very negative impact on intergenerational relations. , can not be allowed to spread and destroy the healthy network ecology.
Supervision and punishment should be intensified to create a favorable public opinion environment for intergenerational dialogue in the digital space.
(Reporter Ma Shanshan)