The earliest "source" of "involution" is a few pictures of famous schools. A few pictures of college students exploding their circle of friends are like this: some people are reading books on bicycles, and some people's dormitory beds are full of books. These photos were first circulated among the principals of Peking University and Tsinghua. Later, popular words such as "watching computer while riding a bike" and "Tsinghua Wang Juan" appeared in hot searches, and related emoticons also appeared in many social software for college students.

The original intention of involution refers to the phenomenon that human society stagnates or cannot be transformed into another advanced model after reaching a certain form at a certain stage of development. When social resources can't meet everyone's needs, people compete for more resources.

Now many college students use it to refer to irrational internal competition or "voluntary" competition. This word is widely circulated among college students, causing waves of online discussions.

Extended data

Causes of involution phenomenon

There are many reasons for involution, such as social closure, people's poor access to information, and I don't know if there are better methods and technologies outside; Another example is that human resources are too rich, and there is no shortage of people anyway. The cost of manpower input is very low, and there is no motivation to improve methods and introduce new technologies.

Later, researchers in humanities and social sciences found that many social phenomena have the characteristics of involution and can be explained by involution. The meaning of involution is further abstract, which generally refers to the phenomenon that human society stagnates or cannot be transformed into another advanced model after reaching a certain form at a certain stage of development. For example, the middle-income trap and economic stagflation.

The involution system is self-locking, which has low efficiency, strong operability, lack of outward expansion and cannot be upgraded in the existing mode.