玩手机不理家人算冷暴力？| Are smartphones people's one true love？

Imagine the following scenario: Coming home from office, you open the door and throw yourself onto the sofa. Your husband or wife is sitting on the other end.

Then you start playing games on your smartphone. Your partner playing on his or hers. You ignore each other.

Well according to an explanation of Chen Haiyi, a senior judge from the Intermediate People's Court of Guangzhou, South China's Guangdong province, both of you might be guilty of domestic violence.

At an activity to celebrate the third anniversary of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law coming into effect, held on March 31, Chen said that domestic violence can take many more forms, not just physical abuse. 

"According to the law, it (domestic violence) also includes restrictions on personal freedom, harsh words, as well as cold violence," she said, giving the scenario of a couple playing their smartphones and ignoring one another as an example of the latter.

Her words sparked hot discussions online, with the hashtag #It is domestic violence to play smartphone without paying attention to you mate# being read more than 43 million times by Friday afternoon. 

A popular response to @his/her mate was reminder to couples to check their behavior according to the new definition, as "Meng Xiaoyang" and "I am a big big big mango" did.

But as might be expected, the focus of the comments was the use of smartphones. Especially, a report of App Annie, a company on the statistics of smartphone apps, found that global smartphone users installed 194 billion apps in 2018, of which Chinese users accounted for about a half.

And some of the comments were less good tempered. For example, "Joan Cattail" said: "If he does it often, I will smash his smartphone."

Some micro bloggers point out that the violence caused by smartphones might be more than "domestic". While "Dingxiang Mama" asked, "Do we really need this to see each other?"

"If you fall too deeply into the smartphone, your world will have no one left but yourself and your smartphone one day," commented "A delicate heart behind a mask".

One micro blogger calling himself "BoJack Horseman" wrote a deep analysis about it. "Cold violence is detrimental in a mutual relationship; It damages your relationship more than a quarrel," he wrote, "When your mate is totally not interested in you, that is something horrible and brings destruction to your confidence."

Some people even jokingly said that smartphone has become a new mate to humans, just like the "Camouflage You" said, "My smartphone is my spiritual mate and I must pay attention to it."

Click here for audio and translation of the story 

点击小程序  获取音频和单词释义

You may also like

▼往期精彩回顾▼Xi's Moments      Chitchat

 图图是道            周末双语 

   随身听英语           夜听双语