Daum Soft, a big data analysis business prospected that the social conditions of being ‘alone’ will continue into the year 2016, based on the analysis of 658,512,182 blog posts and 7,973,575,800 tweets. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec.28 (Korea Bizwire) – Daum Soft, a big data analysis business prospected that the social conditions of being ‘alone’ will continue into the year 2016, based on the analysis of 658,512,182 blog posts and 7,973,575,800 tweets.
‘Eating alone’ and ‘Drinking alone’ were phrases mentioned 15,485 times on social media this year. The phrases were mentioned 7 times more compared to the 2,244 mentions in 2014. Compared to the 807 mentions in 2011, the numbers expanded 20 times showing an explosive increase.
Eating and drinking alone was considered to be sad and pathetic in the Korean community, but recently people are having a more positive point of view on the matter. ‘Enjoy’ (771 times), ‘cool’ (240 times) and ‘good’ (218) were the top 3 expressions that were mentioned with the tags ‘Eating alone’ and ‘Drinking alone’ in 2015. It is a huge change, for in 2014, positive terms were only mentioned 40 to 70 times, and in previous years(2011~2013) negative expressions such as ‘hungry’, ‘scared’ and ‘hate’ ranked top in mentions related with posts talking about eating and drinking alone.
For those who are used to eating and drinking alone, marriage seems to be a ‘choice’ in life, rather than a necessity.The Korean term ‘Mihon’ which is the common word for those who are single, embeds the meaning that one is still single even though marriage is still a must. However, a new term ‘Bihon’ which contains the meaning that an individual has no will to be married and is single by choice, was mentioned 160,604 times in 2015. This is a 3800 percent increase compared to the 4,198 mentions in 2014.
‘Fasting Men’ which are men who are having no relationships with the opposite sex appeared after the ‘herbivores’ which are men who are passive in meeting women and having relationships. Mentions of ‘fasting men’ and ‘herbivores’ on SNS increased 50 percent in 2015(14,695 times) compared to the 9,873 mentions in 2011.
Even though it appears that young people are being single and loving it, they somehow don’t seem to be entirely happy.‘Unemployment’ was mentioned 57,731 times in 2015, more than doubling the 24,152 mentions in 2014. Young people seem to have been tortured by ‘unemployment’, and ‘anxiety’ that year. ‘Cry’ and ‘anxiety’ were each mentioned 1,910 and 790 times as terms related with unemployment.
Emotions that are traditionally thought to be related with young people such as love, hope and passion were related with ‘worry’(3,793 times), ‘suffer’(2,715 times), ‘scary’(2,247 times) and ‘hurt’(1,264 times), showing the depressed state of the youth in our society.
Experts are worried that society is becoming a place where people are more comfortable being ‘alone’. They explain that people seem to feel pressure and are troubled with being with someone else because they are maxed out in economical, psychological and social related poverty.
Jo Han Hye-jeong, anthropologist and honorary professor at Yonsei University, diagnosed that young people want to be in a state where ‘they are too busy taking care of themselves to reach out to other people, and they become unable to reach out for help’. “Also, SNS is putting young people in a confused state of mind in which they think that even when they are alone, they are not alone.”
By Francine Jung (francine.jung@kobizmedia.co.kr)
