Recently, a kindergarten teacher, Huang, from Wuhan has become famous across the Internet for teaching children a finger game Little Garden. In fact, her rendition is not a melodical song, but a nursery rhyme with repetitive lyrics “dig dig a hole, plant plant a seed, grow grow a tree”. Her video went viral and has received over 4.73 million likes with warm comments of “cuteness” and “adorableness”. Although it’s understandable that in today’s fast paced world, people are more inclined to enjoy simple, innocent, amusing media content, this phenomenon still struck me with an insidious but serious problem pervasive in China now: the infantilization of Internet culture.

Oxford Dictionary defined the infantilization as the process of treating someone as if they are a child, or keeping them in a state of childlike dependence or immaturity. Infantilization of Chinese Internet culture takes on several forms: popularity of shallow, simple, infantile entertainments, “amusing ourselves to death” trend on social media and lack of critical thinking abilities of the netizens, etc.

In fact, infantile trend can be regarded as cultural ruin for its absence of insightful cultural connotation and ideological depth. Such cultural loss may not only lead to decline in the cognitive abilities of an individual, but also the citizenship for the whole country. Infantilization of Internet culture can induce a sense of despondency, lacking the spirit of initiative and responsibility for the individual. Furthermore, cultural infantilization can stifle innovation, hinder social progress, and weaken our nation's soft power and influence in the global arena. Just as professor Tan Yunming, the Director of the Department of Journalism and Communication at Central University of Finance and Economics, said in his article: “A country with limited cultural heritage and a populace devoid of critical and innovative thinking is inherently destined to be devoid of prospects and a promising future.” Therefore, a concerted effort needs to be made to strengthen cultural construction and address the issue of culture infantilization in China.

There are a few proposals to counter this trend.One involves incentivizing the creation of more diverse and quality content that appeals to a wider range of audiences. The government can incentivize the creation of media content that reflects real life in China from a broader range of perspectives. This can be achieved through the Premium Content Rewarding Programs sponsored by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee.

For example, sponsored by China Central Television, Li Ziqi, a Chinese traditional culture blogger, became an internet sensation both in China and around the world, with over 14.1 million subscribers on YouTube, breaking the Guinness World Record for the most subscribed Chinese-language channel. Focusing on traditional Chinese cuisine and showcasing the rustic lifestyle of Chinese farmers, she presents an almost perfect pastoral life for her viewers. Li's videos are widely appreciated for their cultural and spiritual content, as well as her love for life, making her a successful example of alleviating the problem of juvenile, simple and shallow online content in China. If government continues to give premiums to high-quality online media content, infantile trend might be reversed.

Another proposal is to promote a "low-tech" lifestyle to encourage more critical thinking and less reliance on technology. Contemporary individuals are under enormous pressure to maintain a fast-paced lifestyle, in which smartphones and other smart technologies have become essential elements. The primary way people relieve their life pressure is by “scrolling through their phones”. According to an experiment conducted by Stanford University in 2018, an interesting phenomenon is that when people process the information online, they tend to choose “images” and “videos” over “text”, “simple, short videos” over “insightful programs”. Such stress-relieving mechanism makes netizens to unable to think independently and critically, their minds becoming dull and rusty, thus exacerbating the cultural infantilization of the Internet.

Advocating for a "low-tech" lifestyle can help to some extent in reversing the attention crisis caused by the digital era. For example, Google has launched a series of "Digital Wellbeing Experiments" to help people put down their phones and use a "paper phone", which prints necessary information on paper that can be carried around while leaving the phone at home or in a pocket. By utilizing a "paper phone", the vast majority of the survey participants experience reduced screen time and minimize digital distractions. And they were also able to focus more on their surroundings and real-life interactions without constant reliance on smartphones. With successful results like this, Chinese government may also launch similar projects to alleviate the cognitive degradation caused by high-tech devices and rekindle people's thinking ability.

Lastly, education sectors should foster children’s critical thinking ability and enable them to analyze the media content objectively, so that the parents can make a change driven by their children. With such evaluation power, children will be able to make informed choices about the media platforms they would spend time on, thus booming the culturally significant forms of entertainment. Strengthening education for children also means strengthening education for parents. Dr. Gail Gross, a family and child development expert, believes that children undoubtedly play a significant role in family cultural construction, and parents are influenced positively by their children and can learn a great deal from them. When children are empowered to say no to infantilized online content, their behavior might influence adults to do the same. A study from Stanford University demonstrated that when children reject certain forms of media, their parents often follow suit, indicating a reciprocal relationship in media habits between children and their parents.

In sum, the infantilization of Internet culture is a growing concern in China. Just as dredging is better than blocking in flood management, it is better to reverse the infantile trend by encouragement rather than punishment. Measures to put premiums on high quality media content, to launch weak-tech campaigns and to foster critical thinking abilities might change the future for China.

i Die Globalisierungsfalle: Der Angriff auf Demokratie und Wohlstand, America，1996 | 1996,Published by Hans-Peter Martin, Harald Schuman

ii Analysis of the Trend of Lower Age of Internet Users and Infantilization of Internet Culture, China,August 2020 | August 2020 , Published by Tan Yunming

iii Strengthening the Spiritual Support for National Rejuvenation, China, November 2019 | November 2019, Published by People's Daily

iv Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on User Modeling, Banff, Canada, June 1999 | June 1999，Published by New York: Springer Wien

v Dorr, A., Kovaric, P., & Doubleday, C. (2023). The Influence of Children's Media Preferences on Parental Media Choices: A Reciprocal Relationship. Journal of Family Media Studies, 27(2), 120-135

姓名：王含竹 电话：15611815766 邮箱：2022200086@ruc.edu.cn