In a world saturated¹ with social media, out lives have lost certain dimensions and become immersed in cyberspace².

 

在这个社交媒体过度饱和的世界，我们的生活已经失去某些维度，湮没于网络空间中。

 

Face-to-face interactions have lessened³, and sending, replying and waiting for messages on WeChat, one of China's most popular social media platform, has become an indispensable part of life for many.

 

China Youth Daily conducted a survey of 2,000 people regarding their use of WeChat. Surprisingly, 35.8% of respondents say they want to turn their WeChat updates off completely. Of the respondents, 19.7% say they probably will in the near future, 13.8% have done so in the past and 2.4% have already shut WeChat off from their lives. The majority, 64.2% of respondents, say they will not delete WeChat from their mobile phones.

 

Deng Chunyang, a first-grade teacher at Donggaodi Third Primary School in the suburbs of Beijing, says she uses WeChat to communicate with the parents of her students.

 

"I have them in a WeChat group and whenever I need to notify them of something, I send them a message in the group," said Deng.

 

"The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning and after I arrive home from work is to check my WeChat to see if the parents have left me any messages."

 

Checking one's WeChat updates first thing in the morning may seem excessive, but Deng is not alone. A majority of respondents (57.1%) say they check their WeChat the moment they open their eyes. 24.2% and 11.9% of users say they rarely, or sometimes go on WeChat in the morning, and only 6.8% say they have never had the habit of doing so.

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