"How many vegetables do you steal today," "it's harvest time for your ripe peach," "I bought you a new car today."

Listening to all of these conversations from quite a lot people in the subway or bus, you do not have to feel weird about the thought that is there so many people in the city really have their own farms, or do they really so reach to buy someone else cars casually?

The answer is obvious negative. They just play some games on Social Network Sites (SNS) like kaixin001.com.

During the short term of more than one year, registered users of kaixin001.com has surpassed 38 million. The repaid development of this website could really be claimed as a miracle. And the fact is not only one domestic SNS like kaixin001.com exist, but lots of them. Many influential websites such as Yahoo, Sohu, Sina and so on opened servers with similar function successively.


Cartoon by Song Song
Why the SNS is so hot? What do people do on the SNS? And what are behind the abrupt fame?

According to the statistics, the major users of SNS are those white-collars who working in the cities between 19 and 35 years old. They spend about an hour averagely online every day. While thinking about the function of those SNS, what do they bring us? Dose it to extend the social communication circle or to confuse the users in the entertainment?

Zhou Yong, a professor from the School of Journalism of Renmin University, says that SNS has a strong function of mood-transferring, which could relieve people's pressure and shorten the interpersonal distance by some simple and funny communications.

Most of the users believe they can not only find their old noncontacted friend, but also make new ones through SNS, and also to share news, pictures and videos.

However, another tide of counter-kaixin is warming up currently. This group of people are usually managers and bosses, because their employees wasting a lot of time and energy on SNS to impact the working efficiency. And some companies have already forbidden their workers to surf on SNS during working period.

Although the SNS could offer a new platform for social communication in theory, most users obviously do not want to benefit from it while mostly concentrating on the little games on it. By surveying the first thing you usually do on the kaixin001.com, more than 70% of voters said they prefer to play the game of "stealing vegetable" firstly. It seems like the primary function of communication has been neglected more or less.

Besides, such little games are losing their attractions for the users. The monthly visit capacity for average person is declining after a period of increasing rapidly. And some users even choose to leave from SNS.

Jin Naili, an analyst, considers losing interests as the primary reason of the matter. She says that users would appreciate the practical benefit from SNS, but not always entertainment. However, most of the functions between two social networking websites are usually the same and lack of innovation.

The users of SNS are facing a problem, too. They do feel boring about the games on the SNS, but their friend circle is still here. So they have to check their accounts every now and then, because it is definitely difficult to copy such a friend circle after all.

By People's Daily Online