Yunchang Yang, PhD Candidate, UCL Anthropology
On 3rd July 2019, I caught up with UCL Anthropology’s ASSA (Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Aging) team at a local pub behind Euston Station. Most of the researchers had just returned from fieldwork and started data-sorting and writing. They shared some great stories from the field on how smartphones are playing different socio-cultural roles across various cultures and societies. When I introduced my work of amateur photography on the Chinese Internet to them and mentioned that many of my informants also practice photography on IOS and Android smartphones, they immediately thought of people taking photos with smartphones and sharing them on social media platforms.…