Locating Home: Cross-generational Play and Co-presence

Abstract

In China, the total number of mobile phones in 2012 reached 1.04 billion, while 380 out of the 590 million Internet users are on China’s media rich Twitter, Sina Weibo (CNNIC 2013). The significant role played by mobile phones as the dominant portal for social and online media was highlighted in the CNNIC 2013 report—Statistical Report on Internet in China—which claimed that mobile web users now total over 463 million. In China, mobile phones have afforded a version of the online that traverses urban and rural divides. With over 200 million smartphone subscribers (along with countless millions of shanzhai or copy versions), increasingly mobile social media is part of China’s mediascape.

While sitting at a busy café in Shanghai, Yue takes a picture of herself on her iPhone. Traversing the various photo apps on her phone she chooses Instagram, which allows her to edit and share her photos almost instantaneously via social media like Weibo (China’s media rich version of Twitter). With a self-portrait that she is happy with, Yue then contextualises the picture with the title ‘waiting’. Almost immediately she receives a mirror image of her best friend, Kay, who is studying over in Melbourne. Mimicking her best friend’s self-portrait pose, Kay’s picture is titled ‘me too’. Yue then receives a SMS from her mum still living in her hometown saying, ‘miss you’.