WeChat Launches Convenient Divorce Registration Feature
Whatever
happened to good old-fashioned romance? That’s what many a WeChat users
will surely ask as they open the “public services” folder on the
ubiquitous social media platform, and come across an eyebrow-raising new
feature that serves as the nadir of today's cutting-edge app services: a mobile divorce registration function.
That’s
right, with a few convenient, cold-hearted taps of the finger,
past-their-best couples can now use WeChat to begin their very own
“conscious uncoupling,” in a process akin to ordering food or hailing a
Didi.
Tech commentator Matthew Brennan Tweeted about the feature on Tuesday and included screenshots of the divorce registration sub-menu.
"It's from a mini-program that Tencent announced a week or so ago for public services in Guangdong province," Brennan describes to the Beijinger.
"Lots of media reported on it but no one actually looked that much into
it though, I guess. I always check and use these things. So they all
missed the most important and funny thing."
Lots of media reported on it but no one actually looked that much into it though. I always check and use these things. So they all missed the most important and funny thing.
No
word yet on whether Beijing authorities will offer similar mobile
options for its public services. That being said, the mobile function
would surely attract more than a few users, seeing as the capital has
China's highest divorce rates according to state media reports (clocking
in at 39 percent, just above Shanghai's 38 percent, Shenzhen at 36.25
percent, and Guangdong's city of Guangzhou which came in fourth at 35
percent).
Meanwhile, the South China Morning Post reported
this past fall that divorce rates nationwide have doubled between 2006
and 2016, before adding, "The number of couples who actually divorced
last year rose 8.3 percent from 2015 to 4.2 million, the ministry said.
And according to its most recent figures, the trend looks set to
continue, with 1.9 million couples getting divorced in the first six
months of this year, a rise of 10.3 percent from the same period of
2016."
Indeed,
such statistics and trends leave many insiders unsurprised that this
new mobile function has been developed, especially in increasingly
tech-savvy China.
"In the same way as popular culture has
expanded enormously as new technologies of communication have become
available, this divorce filing affordance would indicate that there is,
or even has been, an unfulfilled demand for such a service," John Sinclair,
a professor at the University of Melbourne's School of Culture and
Communication who has researched and written about new media in China
and other locales, tells the Beijinger.
... social changes are underway, in the form of more pressures on marriage, and a realization that options are available – on the mobile phone, even – for people in unhappy marriages.
"And
if there is such demand," Sinclair adds, "Then that suggests social
changes are underway, in the form of more pressures on marriage, and a
realization that options are available – on the mobile phone, even – for
people in unhappy marriages."
Images courtesy of Matthew Brennan, Baijiahao (via Baidu.com)
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