| Nowadays,China’s higher education has entered the stage of universal development,and more and more young people have longer years of education,delayed marriage and childbirth,and unstable life and employment status,resulting in the inconsistency between physiological and social ages,thus constituting the unique life stage of "early adulthood".The mobile nature of cell phones is a perfect match for the mobility of children in the early adulthood period.The norm of leaving home and the emotion of blood being thicker than water require them to maintain long-term and stable contact with their parents,in which cell phones reshape the rhythm of personal life and reconstruct the scene of family life,enabling children in the early adulthood period to enter and leave their mobile homes freely,resulting in a new face of intergenerational interaction and relationship characteristics.This study explores the interaction practices and intergenerational relationships between children and parents around cell phones in early adulthood from the perspective of early adulthood,using two qualitative research methods: semi-structured interviews and online participant observation.The study found that,as a new force of expression and connection within the family,cell phones sustain,shape,and change intergenerational interactions in early adulthood families: children of early adulthood who live apart from their parents differ in the frequency,objects,topics,and forms of cell phone communication from offline patterns;children in their early adulthood act as digital gatekeepers for their parents,either actively or passively,and many difficult conflicts arise during and after the refeeding;in the face of parental regulation and interference extended by the cell phone medium,children fully mobilize their own initiative and initiate a tug-of-war for kinship in the digital age.Clearly,the centripetal force,socialization,and sense of boundaries of family members in the early adult period have subtly changed in the process of cell phones embedded in the family,and this silent change is usually unnoticed by the parties involved,reflecting the influence of the media’s hidden organizational power on intergenerational relationships.Firstly,cell phones have enabled the transfer of home to virtual space,and children living in different places resonate with their distant parents in the same frequency.The sense of immersive participation satisfies the emotional needs of the digital age,and the close connection makes parent-child relationships more harmonious.Secondly,intergenerational feedbacks have opened up a new round of parent-child interactions,and the logic of mediatisation has expanded the family voice of children in the early adulthood,but the emergence of new conflicts also makes the direction of intergenerational relationships uncertain.Finally,the richness of the online family scene has realized the freedom of the respective needs of both parents and children,but it is more likely to trigger intergenerational conflicts in the digital age.In the disembodied space,three intergenerational forms of relationships have been formed in adult primordial families: the mediated maintenance of kinship,the new filial piety that is filial but not obedient,and the alienation of real intergenerational interactions.In general,the Internet has achieved a decentralized revolution,during which technology and human nature have been in a state of play.Despite the unprecedented positive impact of cell phones,and the mainstream social trend of mutual respect and equality between generations,it is undeniable that existing intergenerational conflicts will remain permanent,new intergenerational conflicts are still being played out,and the complex intergenerational relationships still require us to look at the impact of digital media in a dialectical way. |
