'I hesitated for a moment, fearing I might miss out'

In 2019, I attempted to close the Moments function on WeChat.

Then one morning, just as I settled into my office routine, waiting for my computer to boot up, I absent-mindedly opened Moments. As usual, I scrolled through a barrage of advertisements for a few pages, finding it rather dull.

So, I closed it.

It wasn't just the ads. I felt there were too many people posting in Moments, many of whom I didn't really care about or want to keep up with.

In the following days, my phone often found itself scanning, as the Scan function had replaced Moments at the app page. Unconsciously, my finger swiped the phone screen, opened WeChat, tapped on the place which used to be the Moments, relying solely on muscle memory. It took a few seconds for my brain to register what had just happened. By the fourth day, my finger had "forgotten" about Moments.

Recently, I've been practicing with a friend to control our usage of Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book (a social media platform). After being constantly bombarded with a kind of information flow, I realized I had been using it for quite a while, feeling physically uncomfortable and dizzy.

Instead, I prefer to seek out content on the apps rather than what is pushed to me. I actively search for what I want to see. On Weibo (a micro blog), I only check updates from my friends and people I follow, and the news. I choose what I want to follow, rather than passively accepting information.

After closing the Moments function, I hesitated for a moment, fearing I might miss out on information, which, in reality, did not happen. But there was an unexpected incident.

On my parents' 30th wedding anniversary, my mother posted on Moments. It wasn't until I saw a screenshot in the family chat group that I remembered it.

It's challenging to explain to my parents why I turned off Moments and why I missed that message. So, I clicked into my mom's Moments and gave her a like.

Shao Wan spoke with Zhang Yi.

Shao Wan, 33, hails from Hangzhou and works in the advertising industry.