‘Check In’- We are not lost, we are here.

When people use social platform to communicate with each other, while they are more likely to use ‘Check-in” function to locate themselves, and let other people know where are they, and which places have they been to?  This situation is not only happens in one specific country, but it exits all over the world.

Whatever when i use Weibo in China or Facebook in UK, i just realised most of my friends like to use this function.

Do they really afraid of lose in somewhere, so they just let others to know where are they in any time? We do not deny this answer completely, because it may the real reason for some people. But i think the important reason for most people is they just want other people to know where they have been and show their personalities.

Such as if you go shopping in some special places, then what you want people know is about what are you actually doing, and which kind of place you choose to shopping. The same as when you eating in some good restaurants, when you let people the place, you always will get more comments about the restaurants and also to the food.

The other important reason for some people is they indeed want to use ‘Check-in’ function to record their daily life. Therefore, even many years passed, when you go back to look at your past life, you can know which places you have been to and what were you doing at that moment. It will remind people some good experience.

So no matter what is the reason for you to use ‘Check-in’ function, there is one thing undeniable that the use of new media does make people’s lives more enjoyable. That

Can Weibo change China?

Yesterday, Professor Junchao Wang, Tsinghua University gave us a talk about WEIBO and idea communication in China. He mentioned Weibo plays a leading role of social media in China nowadays, and it indeed changed traditional communication sphere in China, even though Weibo still under the Chinese government control to some extent. Wang thinks Weibo as a new platform for people to communicate and include some sensitive topics that impossible to be discussed in the past; he believes Weibo will make Chinese public sphere more and more freedom.

Under the Chinese government policy, lots of information could not be posted online, the online system will delete the sensitive information refer to the government. That is to say, Chinese do not really have the speech freedom since the emergence of Weibo. As wang mentioned, Weibo to some extent changes this situation. While, when I know more about the news posted on Weibo, I find in fact, there are large of information on Weibo are not true, so even though Weibo provides a platform for speech freedom, is that still meaningful with discussing about false information?And the point is people even do not have enough knowledge to realise the information is truth or not. Some news match with the wrong pictures, viewers just read pictures and criticizes the news, nobody doubts its authenticity.

I mentioned this problem to Wang when he finish his talk, he explained Chinese people repressed for too long, and now they have finally found a platform to vent their dissatisfaction with society, so to develop their media literacy is very important, while, that is should be about the problem with the education.

And also on Weibo platform, you may feel Chinese have good integrity, but in fact largely of them are just grandstanding, but not responsibility for their speech and comments. To this extent, I don’t think it is a good phenomenon on Weibo platform. However, Weibo gives Chinese a chance to speak up their thoughts and opinion, but not keep quite anymore. They use this platform to help strangers as well as to expose the bad things in society.

I personally think Weibo provide a platform to build own personalities, which is a good thing for Chinese. Because of the policy and the education in China, in fact Chinese do not have enough courage to present themselves, they would not like to be exposure and afraid of criticize. While, Weibo changed this situation and makes people like to communicate.

If we want to change China, that is still a long way to go. So can Weibo change China is still a question, there is no answer can give at this moment, unless the Chinese government policy changes, but everyone knows that it could not be happen in recent years. However, Weibo indeed makes communication situation better in China, which is the thing we could not deny. Then let’s just use Weibo frequently, and to see what will happen in the future.