Browsing for Cunzaigan on WeChat: Young People’s Social Media Presence in Accelerated Urban China

Abstract

This article examines how young Chinese adults living in urban areas experience cunzaigan (a Chinese word that translates to ‘sense of existence’) through sharing mundane life moments on the social media platform—WeChat. We draw on the theories of social acceleration and social presence to interpret this practice and, in so doing, find that for our participants, cunzaigan signifies a subjective experience, testifying that they are here, providing a counterpoint to their mobile and fast-paced urban lives. Drawing on their experience of temporal social presence on WeChat, we contend that technological developments, which have been identified as a key motor of social acceleration, can also be harnessed as a resource to serve ontological and social purposes in an accelerated social context. In so doing, we address the role that everyday engagements with social media play in shaping the temporal nature of young people’s lives.