Chinese loved the noise of "Don’t laugh at the farmer’s wine and wine, and keep customers in good years." He was happy that "my parents heard about women and went out to help Guo; When Sister A heard that Sister Mei was coming, she should manage red makeup. When I heard that my sister was coming, I sharpened my knife and turned to pigs and sheep, which made my family and people happy, and my children and grandchildren were full of flowers around their knees. To sum up, their happiness and joy come from people, lovers, relatives and friends, who gain energy in interpersonal relationships and comfort in the community. All affection and honey can eliminate the sense of boundary, melt the sense of alienation and provide interpersonal support. However, the world can’t be static. The high-speed urban life and the rapidly changing life situation make the demand for individual motivation to pursue independence increasingly strong. In modern society, the age of atomization has arrived, and individuals are lonely and alienated. People begin to build clear boundaries in their busy lives, stressing the courtesy of "don’t bother others", and it is best to have the silence of "others don’t bother me". Stick to one’s own boundaries, respect others’ boundaries, be far away but not sparse, be near but not enter, young people like to establish boundaries, and oppose or even fear the "sticky interpersonal relationship" that others are willing to build.
Characteristics of Social Needs of Contemporary Youth
Sociologists call contemporary society a "society without opportunities", that is, with the alienation of interpersonal relationships in the network age, the traditional social relationships such as geography, academic affinity, career affinity, professional affinity and social affinity are weakening and disintegrating day by day. The social communication needs of contemporary youth are as follows:
One is social micro-demand and low interpersonal desire. Through the filter of the times, people tend to be "low-desire" under the heavy burden of life and work, and they are increasingly confused and confused about social interaction. Especially, some young people are more accustomed to using low-desire, inaction, decadence, lying flat and Buddhism to describe the internal low-motivation state. David McLelland, an American psychologist, believes that people have basic achievement motivation, power motivation and affinity motivation, and keep moving forward for the internal driving force. However, when human desires in modern society are over-amplified, people begin to pursue a "low-desire life". Low achievement motivation, so lying flat; Low power motivation, so they do not interfere with each other and are quiet with each other; Low social motivation, thus constructing boundaries. Just like the ancient Greek cynic school, it advocates returning to nature, being pure and lacking in desires, despising worldly wealth and wealth, and demanding that people should be self-restrained and independent. Young people’s social fear is not a psychological obstacle to social communication anxiety, but to avoid social interaction as much as possible, get rid of useless social interaction, and turn from face-to-face social interaction to direct "expansion" of the network.
Second, I like the sense of boundary and refuse to be socially sticky. Interpersonal boundary is the ability to realize "self" and "others". When a baby is five months old, he can clearly distinguish the relationship between "self" and "others" with his skin wrapped, thus establishing a physical boundary concept. Interpersonal boundaries are flexible and can also be psychologically differentiated. Young people refuse or even resent all the sticky interpersonal relationships that have no sense of boundaries, and remain alienated from them. They don’t like the joy of knowing each other, and they don’t want to be apart from where will you go. They have a weak attitude towards interpersonal relationships, and a friendship between gentlemen is as light as water. Young people’s social fear scene is not worried about silence, but about being too familiar. Enthusiastic relatives and friends keep asking about your privacy, controlling parents interfere in your life excessively, and friends with unclear boundaries always intrude into your life, forcing you to care or force you to ask for your warmth.
Motivation of social demand change
The squeeze of the network community on the acquaintance society and the reorganization of daily life. Compared with the traditional acquaintance society, the interaction of strangers in cyberspace and the superposition of acquaintance society jointly construct daily life, and cyberspace reorganizes and constructs daily life and activates the matching daily life. "People can flock together, but they can’t flock together." "People are not as strong as cows, and they can’t walk like horses, but cows and horses can be used by people." Naturally, people can know how to achieve cooperation and how to make cooperation last in social interaction norms. Under the traditional social and natural economic conditions, in order to resist natural and man-made disasters and various risks, people need alliances, emotional alliances, economic alliances and relationship alliances. In traditional life, villages live in groups and help each other. Economic community is also a community of life, culture, relationship and emotion. In the community, people can seek their own development and self-circulation, and build a stable social structure and psychological structure. In the era when market rules and commodity exchange are not yet mature, acquaintance society has become the guarantee of intertemporal behavior through the ties of emotion and relationship. Acquaintance society needs the maintenance of interpersonal relationships, the communication between friends, the support of relatives and families, and the formation of relationships through fixed ceremonies, such as the human expenses of weddings and funerals, the courtesy of visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival, and meeting the exchange needs of human feelings according to the intimacy of relationships in the ripples of the differential pattern. This dense network of human feelings has formed a psychological support network and a social support network with relative security.When in trouble or in need of help, the human network shows its great vitality and support, which is the basic interpersonal needs of individuals and the necessary human capital. Relationships are formed by alliances, and emotions are borderless and sticky. This kind of explicit or implicit exchange is defaulted as intertemporal behavior, which does not need to be cashed in time, but can be saved into psychological accounts and emotional accounts, which is emotional dependence and human debt. However, with the rapid acceleration of social mobility, the closed social structure has rapidly disintegrated, and the open and pluralistic society has moved from the traditional etiquette system to the modern rule of law. Public services, social services and commodity services have improved the overall operating efficiency of society and weakened the traditional rules of life. In addition to the ubiquitous convenience, the online community allows people to get attention at any time and place, be heard and seen at any time, and never feel alone. The Internet provides more and more ways, and the society can still walk the world and even go further without relying on acquaintances.
Substitution change of reward in interpersonal relationship. "The ancients attached importance to friendship, while today’s people attached importance to profit." Interpersonal relationship has typical reward value, and constructing interpersonal network is an important strategy widely adopted to deal with uncertainty. According to the view of resource dependence, individuals can gain resources and manage uncertainty through the construction of interdependent networks. In order to better manage dependence, people need to adopt various strategies to establish relationships with others, such as cooperation, altruism, friendship, affection and even love. Man is a fragile reed. The sticky interpersonal relationship without a sense of boundary makes it unnecessary for social animals like human beings to live alone. In a thick relationship, they can gain security, satisfy intimacy, resist risks and overcome suffering. From basic physiological needs to developmental social needs and high-end psychological needs, they can be met by social interaction. We are always ready to socialize, which is a natural survival instinct. According to the social exchange theory, people’s interdependence needs returns and costs. The reward of relationship is the satisfying experience and goods obtained from contact with others, such as care, help and satisfaction. The cost is punitive, and it takes time, energy and emotion to maintain the relationship. Its formula can be shown as "result = return-cost". The smaller the cost, the higher the return, the more satisfactory the result and the stronger the durability of the relationship. According to the interdependence of relationships, everyone wants to enjoy the "surplus economy".At least make ends meet. The exchange of human beings exists widely in all communication relationships, "neighbors exchange favors, children exchange toys, colleagues exchange help, acquaintances exchange courtesy, politicians exchange concessions, discussants exchange views, and housewives exchange cooking skills". Digital transformation permeates all aspects of economy and society, which redefines productivity and production relations and reshapes lifestyle and interpersonal patterns. All exchange objects can be completely liberated from interpersonal relationships and all can be released into cyberspace. The mutual assistance of distant relatives and neighbors can rely on the smart community, and the interpersonal accommodation of the relationship network can be achieved through the Internet. The technical iteration and division of labor are no longer completely dependent on the "temperature" brought by the relationship, but instead of the "speed" and "effectiveness" of digitalization. Social relations are productive forces. In modern society, the division of labor is refined, digital empowerment is realized, and it is easy to do things in the palm of your hand, easy to do, and easy to do things in seconds. Therefore, problems solved by sticky interpersonal relationships can be solved instantly. Interpersonal exchange is influenced by social norms, and more reciprocal and fairer norms can last. However, interpersonal reward mechanism is often not reciprocal and fair. A high-ranking person refuses to attend class reunion, and a wealthy person avoids family reciprocity. Different resources determine their exchange status. The possession of resources affects interpersonal exchange. Once the exchange is not fair and equal, it is easy to terminate quickly, and a little social networking can often stop the loss quickly.
Modernity evolution of individual social micro-demand. Relationship is a choice, and modernization is also a trap. Relationship is a basic element and an important resource deeply rooted in history and culture. After a great change from tradition to modernity, people’s cultural value and personality gradually changed from the tradition of obeying authority to the modernity of equality, openness and independence. The novel Coming after 90s depicts a group of post-90s who live in the present and refuse authoritarianism and preaching. They are young, individualistic and free-minded. The authoritarianism, human feelings and face-saving, and harmonious relationship that adapt to the traditional culture are decreasing among the young people born in 1990s, while the openness, tolerance and pluralism that adapt to the needs of modernization are increasing, and the self-constructed independently by individuals is increasing, while the self-constructed interdependent is weakening. Yang Guoshu, a social psychologist, believes that the modernization theory distinguishes the traditional society from the modern society on a macro level, which is reflected in the individual’s tradition and modernity. Driven by the rapid changes in modern society, from tradition to modernity, individualism has been constantly publicized and collectivism has gradually declined. The traditional relational society can not only meet the needs of emotional communication, but also provide practical purposes of service and mutual benefit. The enthusiasm for modernity does not mean the traditional depression, but with the development of economy and society, the subdivision of modernization and the precision of service, the function of traditional relations has partially declined. With the improvement of social industrialization and affluence, and with the permission of people’s educational level and economic strength,More young people can live independently and choose freely, and the mode of interpersonal relationship is increasingly based on self-satisfaction. In the context of the first modernity, family relationship is given first and inevitable, while in the second modernity, family relationship is no longer a necessity, and individuals pay more attention to the realization of self-needs. Even in the post-industrial era with new institutional requirements, digitalization provides more autonomy, flexibility and mobility. Individuals do not need to live in family unity, but can rise from the necessary item of family community to the optional item. The daily care, economic support, emotional comfort and other functions undertaken by traditional interpersonal relationships are constantly replaced by social services. On the road of change, culture has been rushing from tradition to modernity, which has brought obvious individualization intention of interpersonal relationships, loose power structure of original relationships, and the demand for social relationships has been continuously melted, transferred and lost.
Keep your distance or keep in touch?
After entering industrial society and post-industrial society, human beings gradually got rid of the system and cultural situation of agricultural society, and opened up new selectivity by means of large-scale machine production. With the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution, the application of new technologies once again brought about the renewal and iteration of behavior patterns and lifestyles. Shirley Telker, a sociology professor at MIT, studies the impact of technology on society. She used to be an admirer of technology, but now she is crying out to the whole world: technology makes us more lonely! Loneliness has been listed as a serious public health problem by The Economist. Loneliness is actually people’s subjective response to the difference between "expected social relationship" and "actually felt social relationship", which is related to many negative risk factors, such as anxiety, depression, physical and mental health. Loneliness is the inner loneliness under the prosperity of the interpersonal bubble in the network. Although the network provides secondary, tertiary and all kinds of indirect contact, the younger generation is still lonely in the prosperity of the interpersonal bubble. Heidegger said that the arrival of the technological image era will make people become a kind of existence dominated by technology, lacking in poetry and belief, and people’s existence is alienated by technology, which seems to be free, but in fact it is fettered. Shirley Telker, a sociology professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, believes in Group Loneliness that people often feel lonely, but they are afraid of being bound by intimate relationships. Digital technology provides companionship for people, but unfortunately it is only an illusory companionship. The more you immerse yourself,The more you can’t find intimacy in reality. In reality, in 2018, the British Teresa government approved the establishment of the "Lonely Minister". In 2021, the Japanese cabinet appointed the Minister of State to solve the problem of national loneliness. Can the "Lonely Minister" fight against the loneliness of all mankind on its own? Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist, believes that modern people suffer from a "disease of infinite desire".
Keeping in touch is necessary for survival. The communitarian community analyzed in "Mobile Modernity" is "a calm island that is comfortable and at home in a rough sea where people have nowhere to hide". Today’s species are determined by natural selection, and the motivation of constructing interpersonal relationship is precisely because of its adaptability, which satisfies the essence of the struggle between groups and nature in the early stage of human society. In the Internet society, interpersonal relationship seems to be alienated, and social networking has played an alternative role. While human beings are embracing new technologies in the 21st century, technology seems to hijack people’s lives and emotions. However, interpersonal interaction is instinct. American humanistic psychologist Maslow refined the hierarchy of needs theory from seven levels to five levels, namely, physiological needs, security needs, social needs, respect needs and self-realization needs. Matthew Lieberman is an interdisciplinary professor of psychology, psychiatry and behavioral science at UCLA. When the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter triggered widespread public discussion, Lieberman was interested in using fMRI technology to explore the mystery of human "social brain". In his book "Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect", he pointed out that the dorsal frontal lobe is the center of the social brain. When people sleep, rest and think explicitly,This part of the neural network will be highly activated, which controls our social life, makes us stand by at any time, and looks at the world with the thoughts, emotions and goals of others. Psychological stimulation hypothesis puts forward that social clues in social media interaction are different from the real situation, which makes it difficult for individuals to empathize and care about the authenticity of others. Although sharing intimate information is more free and comfortable, it can only provide a short-term intimacy, which has little influence on the formation of long-term friendship and intimacy.
Social interaction is a social interaction activity between people, including dimensions, depth, breadth and frequency. Virtual social interaction is free in dimensions, wide in breadth and varied in frequency, and it can naturally interact deeply. However, compared with real social interaction, the more immersed it is, the more lonely it is, the weaker the emotional connection it establishes, the less satisfied with intimate relationship and the less intense the happiness experience. Online social interaction mostly focuses on the interaction of expression packs with no actual content, mechanical praise without thinking, general praise and empty blessing, broadcast communication and sharing of the latest developments, beautified life and faces under the filter. These weak links cannot replace the strong link of face-to-face reality. People need firm eyes when shaking hands, warm arms in fear, affectionate feelings in the eyes, deep tenderness in words, encouragement from friends when they are weak, and exhortation from their families when they are sick. The interpersonal trust, empathy, sense of gain, negotiation boundary, emotional adjustment and self-worth that interpersonal interaction can provide are difficult to achieve in online communities. At the same time, online interaction is more about weight than quality, but psychological happiness research finds that the variable related to happiness in social interaction is the quality of communication, not the number of communication. Passive interaction in the network imprisons people in a cage that looks beautiful, seemingly dazzling, but in fact it is manipulated by them. Therefore, in the end, human beings can’t leave offline communication, occasionally get together and often meet, improve their satisfaction and clearly define themselves. Moreover, the comprehensive, profound and rapid social transformation contains a high degree of uncertainty, which is more likely to cause a profound sense of impermanence and powerlessness in the mind.These need to be closely linked to form stable offline interpersonal support, break self-curling, resolve risks through active and healthy connections between people, and have the same heart.
Keeping your distance is polite social intercourse. Socrates said, "Life without introspection is not worth living." It is true that social interaction needs to be thick, but the boundaries are still becoming clearer. From the source and nature, interpersonal relationship can be divided into embedded interpersonal relationship and realized interpersonal relationship, the former is transcendental and the latter is self-induced; The former are parents and relatives, while the latter are friends and partners. It is not easy to establish high-quality interpersonal relationships, which may come from knowledge, skills and abilities. Maintaining a proper sense of boundary is actually an ability to use situational judgment to evaluate social relations, and it is also an ability to gain insight into social relations. The stronger the ability, the better the level of agreeableness and the higher the popularity. George meade, an American social psychologist, believes that human interaction is influenced by culture and its symbolic meaning. Western society is a group consciousness based on individual consciousness, while China is an individual consciousness based on group consciousness. Any mature culture will have both individual consciousness and group consciousness, but the changes and evolution of the times are dynamic rather than static, and individual consciousness and group consciousness are bound to accompany the environment and ecological system. Clear boundaries are the decency and courtesy of modern interpersonal relationships. They interfere with others too much and can’t tell the boundaries clearly. They seem to be asking for nothing in return and spare no effort. In fact, they are a manifestation of a high degree of control desire and an unconscious interference with others when crossing the border. Classical philosophy assumes that an unchanging belief, like a statue of spirit, can form people’s personality.Learning to respect interpersonal boundaries is also to avoid moral "kidnapping and control". Social principles need to make oneself comfortable and others comfortable, know how to establish personal boundaries reasonably, learn how to respect others’ boundaries, devote themselves to forming an orderly ecology in interpersonal connection, so as to achieve groups in individual association, and at the same time achieve individuals in group interaction, refuse boundless interpersonal stickiness, and learn to clear communication boundaries with wisdom. Be close without overstepping the bounds, be familiar with and have a distance. Life is like a ruler, and it should be measured.
(The author is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Zhou Enlai School of Government Administration, Nankai University)