If the Apple conference is an annual Spring Festival Gala, the intermittent updates of WeChat are like an unexpected holiday. In the past eleven years, WeChat has gradually changed from its initial simple appearance to a national software that now carries many functions and expectations.
And as a non-geek ordinary user, when I was looking through the Moments, I suddenly found that I had been using this software for nine years without realizing it, published countless Moments content and joined many group chats. He has also changed from a WeChat chat user to a heavy user and creator of public accounts. Let’s summarize how I have gone from resistance to full use of WeChat in the past few years and what changes it has brought to my daily life.
screen facing conversation
There is no doubt that the most frequently used WeChat function of all WeChat users must be the basic function of WeChat: chat. One-to-one or one-to-many, text or voice. Everyone is used to expressing themselves in front of the screen.
add a WeChat
With the popularity of WeChat, there are almost no friends without WeChat, so that “adding a WeChat” has become a standard gesture of courtesy and connection.
At first, I didn’t understand why WeChat won such a huge market, but when I returned to my hometown during the Chinese New Year and saw so many middle-aged and elderly non-QQ users using WeChat to send voice messages, I realized that it has greatly broadened the user base. : “Press and hold to talk, release to send” Simple and easy to use. Even if I don’t like the sudden 60-second voices on the opposite side (I hope WeChat voice can be automatically converted to text or paused for voice management like bullet text messages), but after all, the threshold for use is greatly reduced, and it is simple and refreshing. The operation interface far surpassed the bells and whistles of QQ at that time.
Therefore, when almost every domestic smartphone user has a WeChat account, adding a WeChat account is like an invitation to log in. After the physical separation, the possibility of further communication is still maintained, and the existing emotions are easier to maintain or deepen.
When we all have a cheap and high-definition communication channel, the shackles brought by high operator tariffs are instantly broken, and the contact of many relatives and friends becomes frequent. When a certain Mid-autumn Festival and friends used the WeChat video “Cloud Drinking” to celebrate the full moon night together, I suddenly felt that the progress of technology was really good. If one day Callkit can be enabled (that is, answering like a phone call), the experience of WeChat calling or video should be better.
meet strangers
When I first started using WeChat, most of my friends were acquaintances, and most of the group chats were family groups, work groups, and classmates. Later, it will join various interest groups, such as outdoor or a podcast listener group. Because of common interests and hobbies, everyone gathers together. With the fermentation of time and continuous communication with each other, some very interesting netizens will be discovered, and even friends with highly compatible values will be found. In contrast, in real physical life, it is actually difficult to have more time to contact strangers outside of work.
I like to chat with friends who are older than me, because they have rich experience and knowledge, they can see the world more thoroughly, and their analysis of problems will be more mature and comprehensive. Chatting with them is not only an extension of thinking, but also a verification of one’s own thinking logic.
I like to chat with friends younger than me, because they are active thinking and eclectic, their views on the world represent the trend and direction of the times, and their expectations for the future affect the mood of the Internet. The size of the tuyere depends on the participation and enthusiasm of young people.
More importantly, in the virtual space, you can abandon the inherent impressions brought by age, income, occupation and appearance to communicate freely. The bouncing fingertips touch not only the screen, but also a fresh soul. . For example, in the minority group of authors (doves), you can keep up with the trend of consumer electronics and discover interesting lifestyles, and you can see the wonderful sharing of celebrities from all walks of life. Isn’t it a blessing to be able to join a group that is not limited by geographical boundaries but has a vivid individual image?
But it is also this layer of screen that can not only break down barriers, but also allow liars to get rid of identity restrictions and easily break a person’s inner defense line. Even if you are as careful as I am, I or I have encountered many times such as selling miserably for help, stealing WeChat IDs to ask for money, or staged “scenarios” in group chats to attract you to pay for the game.
So strangers may be good or bad. From this perspective, how is virtual cyberspace different from the real world? Fortunately, if you don’t like or hate or fear someone, you can easily block him/her to protect yourself.
Show and interact
When I just started using WeChat, I only used Moments as a tool for forwarding news sources. But with the full shift from QQ to WeChat, the circle of friends has gradually become a space for expressing one’s own ideas and listening to other people’s voices.
Circle of friends
In my understanding, WeChat Moments are like a family yard or a living room. It should not be a street with hot eyes, nor should all the private homes be exposed .
With the increasing frequency of working from home, there are fewer opportunities for friends to meet offline, so the circle of friends has become an interactive virtual space. The posts posted in the Moments are almost all perceptions and impressions of a friend’s current situation, even if he or she is not.
So when we scan the Moments of Moments, what we want to read is not only a sentence, a picture, but more importantly, the emotions that this dynamic wants to express: enthusiastic, sad, happy, showing off, Obscure… When I share the beauty I find, the moment I admire, or the filth I see, it’s natural to hope that friends will use it to understand what I’m doing and how I’m in the mood. It can even be traced back to 2014 when I just started using WeChat, and saw a complete mood and portrait of me. Of course, not everyone likes this. Some people like to use the circle of friends as a Pensieve and throw all their ideas into it; This is very similar to the courtyards of various families. The styles are different but there is no right or wrong. If I really don’t like it, just close the door.
Like and comment
But whether it is your own news or the news of others you see, it is still a one-way expression. Only a like or comment is a real interaction.
For example, from 2016 to 2017, I launched a 365 activity with a picture a day. For a regular office worker, it is not an easy thing to keep going for a day. But what can keep motivating myself is not only the goal I have set before I have to do it, but also benefit from the likes or comments from my friends every day, some support, some suggestions, and some private chats to encourage me. So after persisting for one to two years, I achieved something that I couldn’t imagine before, and my shooting skills have also been greatly improved.
Therefore, positive interaction can further promote the communication across the screen. If you see something you like in the circle of friends, you may like it or leave a comment, or even go a step further and have to chat privately. I believe this can promote friendship among friends. The emotions between them can also stimulate more expressions.
Over the years, countless people who like to post pictures have complained that WeChat Moments can only send nine pictures, but in my opinion, it is not a big flaw: on the contrary, this limitation can force the poster to optimize among dozens or even hundreds of pictures. The best of the best, the beauty of the beauty. In fact, from my experience, it is very good to be able to select nine beautiful photos in a half-day unintentional shooting trip, and it is not enough to post more. After all, WeChat has not yet limited the number of daily friends circle distribution. To say regret, I hope WeChat can add the same forwarding function as QQ dynamic. After all, private domain content also has its value worth spreading, but it is not clear whether WeChat is “restrained” from the perspective of privacy to suppress this demand.
the public
For WeChat, the official account carries the heavy responsibility of public domain traffic. As a reader, we are constantly adapting to the revision and development of the official account. When all kinds of official media have opened official accounts, WeChat official accounts have become the first way for ordinary people to obtain authoritative information. When selecting a certain phrase in WeChat to search on the WeChat platform, articles on the official account have gradually become one of the main channels for us to obtain resources.
And as a photography and text lover, I am gradually trying to break the acquaintances in the circle of friends and enter a wider public domain. So in 2018, the creation of the official account (Caichang Future) began, changing from a content consumer to a producer. Gradually expand from accepting feedback from friends to accepting support, opposition and even questioning from strangers. After experiencing the rapid rise and fall of the number of followers, I repeatedly thought about the audience of the content and the positioning of the official account, and constantly tempered the expression of words and the readability of pictures. Perhaps it was this experience that made me qualified to join minority writing.
But only after operating the official account will you know how bad its editor is. If the editors of other articles are full of Manchu and Han banquets, the editor of the official account is as simple as a plate of expired peanuts, edible but shriveled and boring. This is why when Feishu documentation was launched, it attracted a large number of authors to use it: it is free, easy to use, and highly portable. It has to be said that some of the successes are set off by similar software. In fact, stimulated by other editing software, the usability of the official account mobile client has been greatly improved in the past year, barely reaching the basic functions of the web version.
As for the future of this official account, I hope that it will grow and grow older as time goes by, and record the good and bad, happy and unhappy, as seen from the perspective of a small citizen in an era, through pictures and texts. Happiness, hope and disappointment, effort and loss.
Recording and Collection of Information
It is precisely because there are countless information flowing between the various modules and terminals of WeChat every day and every moment, there is always some information that you want to keep. Then, with the continuous development of WeChat functions, I have gradually established a process for collecting, organizing and managing useful information in WeChat.
Content collection
Whether it is a circle of friends, an official account or a group chat, there are many files, articles and temporary thoughts that need to be recorded or saved. My own approach is to do it based on the timeliness or type of want to save:
- If it is too long to be read at one time or needs to be opened again in a short period of time, go directly to the floating window. For example, some forms are being filled out and documents need to be read on a larger screen.
- If there is content that needs to be greatly excerpted or sorted out, I will send the full text to the file transfer assistant for post-event sorting. Usually the frequency of cleaning is once a week to avoid too much accumulation, which cannot be digested or filed in time.
- If some pictures and texts have reference value, or some controversial topics, you can directly output the content of the webpage to PDF format for saving. Now you can use the full-text screenshot function that WeChat just launched to quickly retain the original text.
When we have quick collections and convenient sharing, combined with the reminder function, it is enough for me to do a preliminary screening of the data or fragmented information flowing through WeChat.
Notebook function
As a non-software tool controller, I have not deliberately looked for a fixed software to take notes. I am used to using the built-in memo on the iphone, but if it is cross-platform, such as when using a Windows laptop or an Android phone, I often get into a situation where it cannot communicate with each other.
But almost every device has WeChat (or the web version of WeChat) installed. So I will naturally use the notebook function that comes with WeChat as a cross-platform recording tool. In particular, it can be directly on the top of the chat and the convenient portability (as long as we are still using WeChat, it will go with you), combined with its content labeling function, it greatly improves the efficiency of using and querying notes, especially for some frequently needed Information passed or shared: bank card information, scanned copies of documents, etc.
For example, when I want to quickly plan the National Day travel plan, I only need to make good use of the basic functions provided in the notes such as checkboxes, serial numbers, locations, etc., to build a very usable plan, and it is convenient to share with friends or family. .
Growing small program
The arrival of Mini Programs has made WeChat “bloated” and “portable”. It is bloated because WeChat itself is getting farther and farther away from being small and beautiful. At the same time, the requirements for mobile phone configuration are getting higher and higher, but it is not a big burden for me: because of the portability brought by the applet, I give up installing many other software. . Since I have the Mini Program, I firmly believe that WeChat (or Tencent) will make an OS sooner or later, so I will also use WeChat as an OS at present. Using WeChat with such a mentality, I will not pay much attention to the growing expansion of WeChat.
As a novice user with limited storage but free traffic, I would give priority to using small programs for software with complete functions or less frequent use, such as Didi Taxi, Yonghui Supermarket, Suibian, etc. It can almost meet my needs, and I don’t need to care about those unnecessary redundant functions in the software (such as selling agricultural products in Didi, etc.).
Especially for the backup machine Pixel 4, domestic software only needs to install a WeChat to meet the daily basic needs, and at the same time, it can avoid the rogue behavior of some tumor software.
The financial function of cutting meat
The gradual rise of WeChat’s financial services has given me a deep understanding of what traffic portals are.
A long time ago, I firmly chose to pay with Alipay, and WeChat was just for chatting. But with the popularity of WeChat red envelopes and WeChat payment, WeChat balance is also increasing day by day. Then, unable to resist the temptation of daily income, he opened balance wealth management and Tenpay, and gradually began to buy wealth management products on WeChat. It was WeChat that brought me into the world of wealth management, funds, stocks and finance. Let me continue to explore new ways of wealth management and a more comprehensive understanding of how money works in the world.
Is this encouraging everyone to manage their money? Actually not. Investment needs to be cautious, everyone should be careful . Because several years have passed, the fund I bought in Tencent is still losing money. My luck is that I don’t have much cash to invest, so the loss is acceptable. However, considering that WeChat’s users include elementary school students and elderly people, and its coverage is extremely wide, it is extremely irresponsible to rashly encourage everyone to engage in financial management. Here we have a clear-cut protest against the ubiquitous credit or investment advertisements in various software including but not limited to WeChat, which is very attractive to young people or minors who are in urgent need of money but have no foundation or ability in financial management and investment. , it is very easy to cause bad consumption habits or financial losses.
other
When I wrote this article, I checked WeChat again and found that there are many functions that have existed for a long time but have been hidden by me: such as discovering games on the page, live broadcasting, shaking, etc., various functions in the service Life services, transportation, etc. But in terms of my actual experience, even if the entrance is hidden, I have been deeply immersed in the various services of WeChat:
- Medical: Use the public accounts of various hospitals for registration, payment and report checking.
- Shopping: Clicking on Ele.me, Meituan, Pinduoduo and other small programs have become habitual actions.
- Services: You will be able to use it to display the health code with the application and inquire about the three golds.
Sometimes I understand Bruce Lee’s “restraint”, but I can also feel his “helplessness”: WeChat’s natural traffic advantage can allow any organization, an employer, or a friend to covet its entrance or function integration, so WeChat is getting bloated, much like QQ ten years ago.
In all fairness, WeChat still has some shortcomings even after it has been updated to this day, such as the inability to synchronize chat records in the cloud, the tedious data migration and easy disconnection, the inability to clean cached data, and so on. But like many things in the world, when you can’t avoid it, you have to figure out how to deal with it. For example, if I choose not to use WeChat to work, there will be no need to keep a large amount of data; key records or conversations will not be lost thanks to my weekly sorting and collection habits; based on the above two factors, I can afford no burden Uninstall WeChat and reinstall it to easily clear the cache.
It may be my Buddhist usage that has made WeChat subtly become an indispensable part of my life in the past nine years. At the same time, hundreds of millions of ordinary users like me continue to iterate slowly forward. For example, the limit on the number of pictures to be posted is now canceled, and the WeChat ringtone can be modified. Maybe one day there will be another software that better meets the needs of users. Like WeChat in the past, why not continue to promote WeChat’s strengths and avoid WeChat’s weaknesses, so that it can better serve our lives?
This article is reprinted from: https://sspai.com/post/76096
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