Despite living in a nation where filial piety is encouraged, elderly Chinese are feeling left out nowadays as their children and grandchildren focus on their mobile phones during their spare time.

A man carries a placard which bears the words "Open Apple Store" and features a picture of South Korean rapper Psy at the gate of Apple's largest store in Asia, located in the city's commercial street of Wangfujing. The store, opened in Beijing on Saturday, is Apple Inc.'s third in Beijing and its sixth on the Chinese mainland.[Photo/Xinhua]

At restaurants, on buses and even at home, the young chat online, play games or browse Twitter-like microblog feeds on their state-of-the-art smart phones, ignoring the family and friends sitting right next to them.

On October 12, a grandfather in eastern Qingdao City expressed his anger at the trend by smashing a plate at a dinner table where his grandchildren were too busy with their phones to chat with him. "You just live with your mobiles," the grandfather said before he left the table.

Local media released the story online later, compelling the public to reflect on how family ties have been affected by the digital era.

"Through the news, I realized that the longest distance in the world was 'when I stand in front of you and you are busy playing with your cell phone,' " said Zhang Feng, a white-collar worker born after the 1980s.

Zhang, who works at an accounting firm in Shanghai, said pressure at work and frequent business trips have left her at a loss for both the time and the mood to communicate with her parents.

"I seldom talk after work, and social networking sites have become the major channel for me to contact my friends," she said, adding that she would be left behind if she failed to check updates. Zhang spends most of her spare time surfing the Internet and, even at the dinner table, she takes photos and uploads them - something she thinks her parents just don't understand.

At Xujiahui Park in Shanghai, a woman over 60 surnamed Wang was escorting her grandson to play. She said her son and daughter-in-law do not arrive home from work until 7 or 8pm, and then they surf the Internet on their phones or computers until it's time for bed. "They rarely talk to me, let alone thank me for taking care of their kid," Wang said.

She once proposed holding a family meeting to discuss the matter, but her son said there was nothing to talk about. "All I want to do is chat with them," Wang said.

To "recover" time, Wang established a family rule banning mobile phones at the dinner table.

The diversified functions of smart phones are challenging filial piety in China, as more and more young people prefer to fiddle with their mobile phones than to talk face-to-face.

Zhang Youde, a sociologist with the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said the "human-to-human" communication style has turned into a "human-to-mobile" style, making old people feel more isolated and exacerbating the effects of the generation gap.

"The elderly, who are used to face-to-face interactions, have been left behind in the information era," said Zhang.

Zhang advises young people to consider their parents' feelings and communicate more with them.

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)