Introduction

China is the country with the largest population in the world (1.42 billion by the year 2019). The Internet Information Center (CNNIC) releases the 43rd “Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network” in 2019 which shows that until December 2018, the number of Internet users in China was 829 million, with a total of 56.53 million new netizens, and the Internet penetration rate reached 59.6%, an increase of 3.8% from the end of 2017. The number of mobile Internet users in China reached 871 million, and the number of mobile Internet users increased by 64.33 million. The proportion of Internet users using mobile phones increased from 97.5% at the end of 2017 to 98.6% at the end of 2018. From the Statistics, we could know that the mobile Internet access has become one of the most commonly used Internet channels for Internet users and China has entered into the digital economy. In this way, in the article we focus on the group of netizens about the relationship between their emotions and the consumption in the digital era.

There are writers who pay attention to the opportunities in the digital era about the consumption. With the title “China’s Mobile Economy: Opportunities in the Largest and Fastest Information Consumption Boom”, Winston Ma (2017) describes the digital landscape of China’s mobile economy and the influence of China’s Big Three “BAT” (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent). He concludes the characters of the boom of e-commerce in China: “Chinese customers are migrating to the mobile internet rapidly. Because China has the largest smartphone user population in the world, the trend of ‘going mobile’ has taken off with greater speed than anywhere else in the world” (p.7).

In “Networking China: The Digital Transformation of the Chinese Economy”, Yu Hong (2017) has analyzed the transformations in Chinese telecommunications, digital media and ICT manufacturing. It discusses “why and how communication is central to Chinese-style capitalism and its on-going reconfiguration” (p.7) so we could observe the context of the Chinese digital economy and the obstacles that are faced by those Chinese.

When we talk about emotions and consumption, Lihui Geng and Xiaoli Li (2018) try to find the relationship between the consumption emotions and brandy loyalty. According to the attributional theory, there are three attributional dimensions of emotions: the locus of causality, controllability, and the stability of emotions. They believe that there is a potential area in which the causes of emotions may affect the consumers’ post-purchase behavior. On the other side, the product attributes and marketing communication may cause the consumption emotions. Jahyun Song and Hailin Qu (2019) make a series of research to find out what promotion focus is related to customers’ value perception and the promotion focuses affect both hedonic and utilitarian value. On another study, they find that not every perceived hedonic value leads to customer satisfaction unless positive emotions of the costumers from such a value. (Song & Qu, 2017)

There are also studies which pay attention to the emotions and new media in China, as we could see the news media serves as the channel for the public to express their emotions. Jingrong Tong (2015) states the role of the internet in the public space which make possible for the individuals to express their emotions and these collective sentiments. In this sphere, emotions are important factors to know the public life. The author also demonstrates some problems in China, such as feelings of insecurity and injustice, and anger and hatred towards the rich and the powerful from the China’s Reform and Opening Policy in the year 1978. The Cyberspace offers the public spaces to show their interests and feelings about the issues which affect the society. Zhang Jingting (2019) pays special attention to the situation of sharing economy in China relating the consumption and the sensibilities of the Chinese in the Society 4.0. Based on the analysis of the concept “Tianxia” in Chinese philosophy the author believes the rapid development of sharing economy in China may offer the space for sharing emotions.

As we have noticed from the literature review, there are works about Internet, economy, digital society, consumption in China, but few studies connect all these factors and highlight the situation of emotions and consumption of the Chinese netizens in the information society. Therefore, how’s the situation of Chinese netizens daily life? What’s the role of mobile phone and activities that they could achieve? What is the relationship between consumption and emotions? With the digital platform, what are the problems and the trends in the future of China and the world? There are some worthy questions that we will discuss in our study.

Mobile phone and Chinese netizens’ daily life

Without exaggeration for the most Chinese the last thing before going to bed and the first thing after getting up are watching the mobile phones. We use mobile phones for meetings, communications, entertainment and the search for places. We rely on mobile phones to record where we have been and what we have done.

According to the results of the 43rd “Statistical Report on the Development of China’s Internet Network” in 2019, we know that until December, 2018 the number of Apps in the Chinese market has reached into 4.490.000. The top three areas are games, life services and the E-commerce. There are 1.380.000 Apps about the games, which represents 30.7 %; 542000 Apps about the life service, which forms 12.1% and the Apps about the E-commerce are 421000, 9.4% of the total.

With all these apps and other functions of the smart phones, Chinese citizens’ lifestyle has transformed. Comparing with the computer or the other high-technological products, we could emphasis at least two main characters, the combination with other functions, because the smart phone could not only make phone calls and texts, it could also watch videos, listen to the music, take photos, read books, play games, find positions and so on. The apps with distinct functions have immersed into our daily life and changed the lifestyle of the netizens. The other character is portable, we could take it to every place at every moment. Liu Zhanxiong and Song Guangwen (2018) analyze the smartphone and the influence of the lifestyle from the philosophical perspective. The smartphones make influence of Hermeneutics relationship which means the digital code may be interpreted into words, images, sounds, videos etc.

Figure 1
The moment of consumption of Chinese netizens¹
Source: Liu Zhanxiong and Song Guangwen. (2018).

According to a survey achieved by the authors about the consumption of the Chinese people in their daily life, nearly all the aspects regarding about consumption, work and life have been affected by the mobile phone, which make our lifestyle changed.

In this way, the mobile phone and the digital economy give the convenience to people’s daily life. The social structuration and the politics of sensibilities are also changed. Scribano (2017a) affirms that the politics of sensibilities “are under- stood as the set of cognitive-affective social practices tending to the production, management and reproduction of horizons of action, disposition and cognition” (p.244).

So, in the digital era, people’s cognition and their habits about the consumption have been transformed. According to Scribano (2019), “In this context we detect that in the existing literature there is a lack of attention to and research about how the politics of sensibilities is being altered by the current situation of Society 4.0, given that digital labour implies substantial changes in the lives of individuals, groups and society in general.” (Figure 2).

Figure 2

Source: Scribano (2019:4)

In the case of China, the massive use of mobile phone changes the way of emotions like hearing, touching, tasting, looking and smelling. The internet generated the E-commerce, which makes the consumption more convenient and efficient. The consumers don’t need to go to the physical store, instead, they can complete the entire purchase process at home. But when we shop online, we have to sit in front of the computer and we can’t leave. However, with the use of the smart phone, it completely broke the border. The consumers could achieve all the purchase process on mobile shopping applications and pay through barcode scanning, mobile payment etc. Therefore, the smartphones expand the activities of consumption to almost any situation.

In the “China Social Media Impact Report 2017”, found that “Chinese respondents are generally happy with changes brought by social media. Through an upgraded satisfactory survey, the aggregate score people gave on social media’s impact on their lives is 79.8. But compared with other age groups, people born in 1990s (90s generation) showed more caution against negative impacts of social media. In the fourth Kantar China Social Media Impact Report, people were asked to rate their feeling towards the impact brought by nine social media sub-categories”.² It’s obvious that the emotions of the Chinese netizens have been changed by the positive and the negative impacts of the social media which is achieved and spread by the smartphones. The survey also demonstrates the strong capacities in digital economy market.

Considering the digital consumption in China, making the suitable policy of sensibilities could guide the consumer’s emotions and the right consumer target. In the digital era, one of the important characters is the expand of the social networks which can bring the commercial value. “Social media spending is expected to rise to 17.3 billion by 2019 (Statista). The allocation of funds to marketing analytics is expected to see a massive increase within the next few years, according to the CMO Survey. In 2017, marketing analytics consumes just 4.6% of marketing budgets. This number could jump to almost 22% by 2020...” (Simply Measured, 2017: 12).

In this context, there is no doubt that China has the largest population of netizens. Scribano (2019) concludes the three important factors of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: (a) the appearance of Big Data as a resource for social diagnosis, (b) the Gig Economy as evidence of the growth of deinstitutionalization and, (c) the Internet of Things (IoT) as a new form of production and “management of sensibilities” (p.5).

The situation in China corresponds these three factors. First of all, the use of big data is very common and the connection between the social network and the mobile phones form the convenient digital platform. The Gig Economy provides more opportunities for the digital consumption and the flexibility in the modalities of buying conducts more productivity and the consuming capability. On the other side, the virtual space has changed more material productions to the virtual productions, which are connected more intimately to the sensations.

In this sense, the politics of sensibilities are associated with the transformation of various sectors in the society. With the development of the new technology and the economic system, more and more digital labors have emerged and entered the service sector. The form of labors is changed and what the service sector needs are not only the skills and physical strength, but also the emotions. The new desire of consumption consists in the sensations and experiences of people. Cheng Boqing (2012) discusses about the consumerism in China. The modern consumption could date back to 1920s in Shanghai, where the foreigners, the power class in China and the new entrepreneurs have adapted the international consumption ways. Then the consumerism disappeared until 1970s, with the introduction of western culture. From 1990s, the consumerism started to expand.

The dynamic images we see, the books and magazines we read, the public places we visit, are all filled with carefully planned business information to stimulate our desire to consume. These business messages are wrapped in an exciting and beautiful lifestyle. High-intensity advertising bombing may not allow people to remember a few advertisements. However, the overwhelming advertisements, even if they cannot sell a particular product, can solve life problems or even happiness by repeatedly stressing what to buy. The guarantee has actually effectively peddled the belief of consumerism (Cheng Boqing, 2000: 136. Translated by the author).

Now in the digital economy in China, more types of consumptive strategies have been into use to arouse the necessity and the emotions of the consumers with the network and the mobile phones. The advertisements are spread in every chance when we use the mobile phones, they may show up in the apps, or in Wechat, or in Alipay… The mobile world and the real world are integrated because with the mobile, we could also do many real things, just like consume, work, pay, communicate etc.

Consumption emotions in the digital economy

Emotions are one of the important factors which could affect consumers’ behavior during and after their purchases. Louro, Pieters and Zeelenberg (2005) explore the relationship between the positive and negative emotions and the consumptions. “Results from three experimental studies demonstrate that, rather than all positive emotions being generally conducive to repurchase, pride can decrease repurchase intentions, depending on consumers’ self-regulatory goals” (p.839). Generally, the positive emotions may conduct to favorable behavioral intentions but some negative emotions like pride may also stimulate the consumers’ purchase intentions. Lihui Geng and Xiaoli Li (2018) make an empirical study by using the sample of 398 college students to analyze the relationship between consumption, emotions and brand loyalty. According to the literature review, they conclude three types of relationships: 1) advertising may arouse consumers’ emotional reactions; 2) marketers’ charity events may provide emotional compensation for consumers, which contributes to their positive emotions and 3) sales promotion was shown to elicit consumption emotions (p.269). Then they show some main managerial implications in the research of the college students:

First, manufacturers should pay close attention to product attributes, such as product quality, features, outlook, style, color, packaging, place of origin, and reputation. They may need to induce consumers’ positive emotions by providing well-designed product attributes. Because negative emotions showed a greater influence than positive ones on brand trust, the main theme of marketing should be the avoidance of inducing consumers’ negative emotions. (…) Furthermore, brand affect had a greater influence than brand trust on brand loyalty. This finding suggests that in addition to the competition caused by product homogeneity, marketers should devote resources to create and retain affective relationships with consumers, which may be the most critical for firms operating in China to survive in the future. (Lihui Geng and Xiaoli Li, 2018: 269)

We could notice that the emotions of young college students are affected in many aspects by the consumption and their emotions may lead their consumption behavior. In the digital era, there are more consumption ways for the consumers to choose. Many physical stores face the difficult situation to manage and some of them are replaced by the online shop. Some brands hold both digital and physical stores.

However, there are also many limitations of the consumption on the digital platform. For example, firstly, the consumers will spend less time because most of them already have a target brand when they log on to the e-commerce platform, so the e-commerce platform is only to complete the transaction. Secondly, price is almost the only consideration. Since most consumers are looking for better prices in the e-commerce channel, e-commerce platforms have to make great efforts to plan and create various shopping festivals to attract them. On the other hand, the consumers may have bad experience on shopping in the digital platform. For them, with a lot of confusing information, it may be difficult to make a decision and the various promotions are too frequent whose appeal has begun to decline, and the truth of the promotion has become the trouble of consumers after they buy the products.

In this sense, on the perspective of brand experience, we could see that the e-commerce channel has its inherent limitations, because based on current technology, the e-commerce experience is still focused on audiovisual perception while the physical channel can operate through five senses (taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound). Luckily, there are some new technologies like VR, whose aim is to help the consumer to experience more sensations except seeing and listening at home.

In the digital era, how to attract the consumers’ interest? As we know that people perceive the world through five senses and their consumption behaviors are connected with emotions, therefore, the complete brand experience should come from the complete five senses which costumers could experience through different points, such as light, shadow, shape, texture, language, sound, material, smell, taste and so on. All these sensations form the experience of the costumers about the target product.

With the use of mobile phone, the process of consumption may not be the only option, in other words, the businessman could use the characteristics of its brand and connect the advantages and disadvantages of online and offline commerce, through both platforms to offer the costumer more accurate and comfortable shopping experience according to their emotions and necessities.

Nowadays in China, as well as other parts of the world, people’s consumption behavior has begun to transform from simple material enjoyment to spiritual pleasure, from tangible demand satisfaction to intangible demand satisfaction. The costumers pay for feelings. What they concern about are not only the quantity, the quality and the price of the goods, but also the emotional satisfaction and a psychological identity. Li Zhijun (2016) states that the Chinese customers are controlled by their emotions when they make choices on consumptions and they are favor to the experience of the consumption process. “The multi-year precipitation of China’s rapid economic development has enabled domestic urban household consumers to transform rapidly from “price seekers” to emotional free consumers, which means that their consumption views have been gradually controlled by emotions from more rational choices” (p.100).³ In his article, according to the survey, Li Zhijun (2016) believes that at least half of the middle-class families will become the new mainstream consumers, which is a major shift that is happening now. Chinese consumers are becoming more impulsive and unpredictable. “In the era of emotional consumption, emotions can create wealth and create brands. The value of emotional consumption is limitless. In order to carry out emotional marketing, enterprises must abandon the price war, because it cannot match the trend of emotional consumption and also bad for the long-term development of enterprises” (Li Zhijun, 2016: 100)

In order to express the emotions, we need to emphasize on the use of emoji, which is very common for the Chinese netizens. The emoji has transformed with the development of the internet and the necessities of the netizens. The appearance of the emoji is because in the communication, only the words are not enough for people to express their emotions during the chat online. At first, people began to use some simple symbols, emoji expressions and even some homemade elements, which gradually evolved into an increasingly culture of expressions. Nowadays in Wechat or other apps in China have invented and are inventing more and more series of emoji with dramatic exaggerated facial expressions and body language, to express disdain, excitement, ambiguity or decadence. It’s worth mentioned that many famous figures or pictures are taken to be some emoji, like panda in the classic pictures and Confucius. By collecting and sharing the emoji people can have fun and express their emotions with the sense of humor. They can also get recognition from others so that they could achieve the psychological satisfaction.

Examples of emoji

Scribano (2017b) investigates the use of Whatsapp as a social research experience from the everyday view:

Now, among several other aspects, we also share with the use of WhatsApp the vertiginous, the rawness of the exhibition and the instantaneous emotional mobilization. In the three mentioned means of exchange, what happened a few minutes ago is replaced very quickly; the phrases, the drawings, the emoji, the photos, etc. they are elaborated to show with rawness and everything has an impact on the handling of laughter, anger, surprise, etc. (p.16)⁴

Scribano (2017b) includes three functions of Whatsapp: framing the reality; microscope effect and the use as a vehicle of inquiry the same means used today to make politics, to buy and sell, to fall in love and to entertain (itself). Comparing with Whattsup, Wechat could complete all the mentioned functions and has much more. It’s convenient to add friends by scanning their QR code and with Wechat, we could even pay anything in China using the QR code. It’s also a social media, a mixture with Facebook and Instagram, we could create our “Wechat Moments” and share with our friends. Not to mention thousands of stickers could be chosen and we could make our own stickers. Also in the chat, we could transfer money to friends or family directly in Wechat platform. What’s more, we could make video and voice call and share the real- time location and so on.

As we know that one of the important feature of the digital society is the sharing economy. Just as Parente and his colleagues define: “The popularized “sharing economy” term has been used frequently to describe different organizations that connect users/ renters and owner/pro- viders through consumer- to-consumer (C2C) (e.g., Uber, Airbnb) or business- to-consumer (B2C) platforms, allowing rentals in more flexible, social interactive terms (e.g., Zipcar, WeWork)” (Parente et al 2018: 53).

The use of Wechat, Alipay and other Apps in the social network in China make the sharing economy develop rapidly. In “Sharing Economy, Sharing Emotions” in the Society 4.0: A Study of the Consumption and Sensibilities in the Digital Era in China” As mentions Zhang Jingting (2019):

In the digital era, the Internet has become a common way to access the outside worldand people are “exposed” in the oceanof information. The new “collectivism” of customers appeared in Society 4.0, related with consumption in the sharing economy, which means that with the impact of social mass media and all types of sharing economy platforms, it is easy to arouse the sensation of empathy, which could cause the collective emo- tions such as pleasure, sadness, and indignation, and these kinds of feelings would be the motor to stimulate consumption (p.150).

Some problems and possible trends

There is no doubt that we have obtained a lot of convenience from the digital society as almost all information is available to find on the web, includes the information on tourism, housekeeping, news, finance society, E-commerce, education, entertainment, etc. The access to information is diverse and without delay. Thanks to the development of mobile communication, instant messaging and other technologies, almost any information we want can be obtained immediately from the Internet.

There are many new forms of consumptions and many of them are connected with the emotions. As the emoji that we have mentioned above is not only for entertainment, it has become a kind of economy of emoji, whose core is the economy of emotions. The other phenomenon is the webcast industry. In the consumer society, webcasting, as a kind of immersive machine, changes the relationship of the interaction between the media and the audience, the consumer. Webcasting is essentially a consumer practice of media participation. It is the product of the integration of capital and technology under the digital economy. Through the virtual screen provided by webcasting, people could capture the lives and emotions of others. In this process of digital consumption practice, the netizens could meet their various needs, especially those young people who form the large group of the consumption of webcast. The daily life and leisure and entertainment of these youth groups have achieved unprecedented integration through the webcasts.

Yu Fuqiang and Hu Penghui (2018) conclude three characteristics of the webcast in the social media: 1) visualization. The live broadcast technology makes the “text —voice/picture/expression—short video” in the daily interaction process of the Internet. 2) Immediacy. Webcast enables instant video communication on a virtual platform. This “immediacy” reflects the facts of the live broadcast, and this fact constructs the sense of the media. 3) Two-way participation. it means that the media consumer (audience) returns to the “performance” scene during the interaction of the live webcast. (p.6) So we could see that the webcasters and the consumers have more interactions and the consumers could also participate actively in the process of the consumption. For example, the webcaster could introduce some products. With their body and actions, the emotions of the consumers are affected so that they have more necessity to buy them. In the process of the webcast, there is also the interaction of emotions. The audience could give the virtual gifts to the webcasters and they show the love, happy and other relevant sensations in return.

Although with many advantages, there are also some problems and obstacles when are worth considering. Firstly, with the exploration of the information, the netizens are lack of the capacity to distinguish. Most of this information is useless: overwhelming advertising, worthless news, and increasingly annoying circle of friends. They are killing one’s patience and reducing people’s ability to withstand. Secondly, there is no privacy in the digital society. All the information is explored under the web unless we don’t use it. Thirdly, with the easy access of the digital platform, there are more opportunities and more competences, therefore, increase the difficulty of government management and monitoring.

Last but not least, the age of netizens is much younger. The young people are explored in the sea of information when they are very young chatting with Wechat, watching webcast in Douyin, which are harmful to their education. Young users are more aware of the negative impact of social media. Young people have a deeper understanding of the impetuousness, lack of concentration, and the negative influence of the network.

China’s remarkable growth and innovation in technology make it become a global leader in the digital area. As mobile technology has become a key area, China participates actively to motivate 3G and 4G in the society and now it has put into use the 5G, which has always been a high priority on China’s national agenda. Under the guidance of national- level strategies such as the 13th Five-Year Plan, the government has developed supportive policies. China’s 5G technology development is the world’s largest government-planned 5G program.

With ultra-high data rates, higher capacity and shorter latency, 5G brings new opportunities for a number of applications that will change people’s lives, including 3D video and immersive media, autonomous vehicles and smart cities. In June of 2019, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology granted the 5G licenses for commercial use to the main three mobile carriers (China Unicom, China Mobile, China Telecom) and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. From September of this year, the consumers could have the service of 5G without changing the Sim Card or number. In this way, what are the functions of 5G? What will be changed in our life? “If 4G is more used in the field of consumer in the Internet, then 5G will promote to do everything in the Internet.”⁵ Wang Zhiqin, vice president of China Information and Communication Research Institute, said that 5G adopts an open structure. In the future, 5G will be more industrialized, including Scene applications such as the Internet of Vehicles, the Internet of Things, and the Industrial Internet will experience the development boom.

In “5G Economic and Social Impact”⁶ published by China Information and Communication Research Institute predicts that from 2020 to 2025, China’s 5G commercial direct economic output will reach 10.6 trillion yuan, and the indirect pull of the total economic output will be about 25 trillion yuan. 5G will directly create more than 3 million jobs. So that we could notice that in the near future our daily life will be changed by 5G, the consumers would have chance to get an immersive interactive experience in various areas such as residence, work, leisure and transportation, promoting effectively the interaction between the real world and the virtual world, therefore, break through the time and space constraints. In this situation, as we could achieve easily the process of consumption, in the 5G society, our emotions play a more important role.

Final reflections

With the rapid development of technology, the Chinese netizens’ daily life has been transformed in the digital economy. Consumption is an active process for consumers to demonstrate the economic capital, cultural capital and social capital and to maintain or enhance their economic and social status. With the use of mobile phones, people could break the borders between physical stores and virtual stores and they could make consumption more freely. In this way, the consumptions are more connected with the concept of emotions, which means that we could decide with what we need according to the sensations. It also demonstrates that our needs have changed from the material things to spiritual and social needs. Emotional consumption highlights the increasing autonomy of Chinese netizens.

In this sense, the accurate politics of sensibilities plays an essential role for promoting the consumptions and guiding people. In order to understand it and manage the sensibilities of the public, it’s important to observe the “cognitive- affective social practices.” On the other side, emotional consumption also brings its vulnerability, that is, there are various potential, unpredictable and uncertain risks in the process of emotional consumption, such as the negative influence on the young people and some problems related to the ethics.

Emotional consumption is not only an economic activity, but is also affected by the social environment. It reflects that Chinese netizens’ freedom and personality during the rapid development of China in recent years. In the politics of sensibilities, it’s necessary to promotes the autonomy of their emotional consumption, but also eliminates the vulnerability caused by emotional consumption. The connection between emotions and sensibilities should be based on the sharing economy and the trend of 5G society, which just start to applicate in China. We need to consider the physiological and psychological characteristics, social roles and individual needs in the management of sensibilities. In addition, emotional consumption also reflects the desire of netizens’ emotional relationship and their social need. Emotional marketization and industrialization support meet the emotional desires. Emotional goods and products according to market rules are becoming more standardized, homogenized, universalized, and virtualized. In this environment, the digital society both in China and other parts of the world, how to understand and promote the relationship between the changing ways and characteristics of consumptions and emotions is a question worthy to consider more.

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Other references

Kantar China Social Media Impact Report 2017 https://cn-en.kantar.com/media/social/2017/kantar-china-social-media-impact-report-2017/

5G licenses for commercial use, the consumers could use the service from September http://www.sohu.com/a/319059527_161795

Notes

Author notes