Viewpoint pubs.acs.org/est
Mobile Social Networks: Emerging Power for Environmental Protection Practices Zhao Zhang* School of Municipal and Environmental Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150090, China executives, design engineers, operational engineers, project owners, investment professionals and environmental investment advisers. Thousands of chat groups based on the most popular Chinese instant message app WeChat have been created by environmental practitioners, with groups ranging in size from dozens to 500 (the maximum size allowable in WeChat). These groups are differentiated by expertise; for example, there are groups devoted to sewage treatment operations management, chemical wastewater treatment, soil remediation, environmental microorganisms, as well as design and consulting. In these anonymous or semianonymous groups, participants are equal, there are no social status constraints, and each person can freely recommend their own environmental technology or practical solution to the problem being discussed. Currently, chat groups are used widely in the following environmental protection practice scenarios, thus demonstrating how these groups are an effective tool to collect the wisdom of the crowd.2 These scenarios are discussed based on what happened in China with local app WeChat, however, I believe peers in the rest world can also use mobile social networks use apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Line, or other popular apps to do the same thing (Figure 1). istorically, due to the division of different groups and the stratification of groups themselves, environmental 1. Getting timely help for solutions to daily problems. In fact, protection practitioners have had difficulty getting timely help there are a lot of daily problems been discussed in these to deal with problems encountered in their daily work, their groups. For example, a sewage treatment plant operation knowledge is difficult to update frequently, their successful engineer may describe his problems with a text experience or the lessons of failure are difficult to share on a description of water quality and sludge parameters of large scale, and peer exchange often involves expensive material inlet and outlet, photographs of microscopic examination and time costs. Considering that environmental-related work or foam on the biochemical treatment unit, and short requires constantly updating multidisciplinary knowledge and videos of sludge floating or aeration; other experienced skills, these obstacles to a large extent hindered the developgroup members can then give detailed analysis and ment of the environmental protection industry in China, provide timely feasible solutions. One can be online in mobile social networks and initiate, check or join in a especially with the development of small and decentralized discussion at any time, thus acquiring knowledge and water and wastewater treatment systems in rural and suburban skills. areas.1 Today, the number and quality of environmental 2. Sharing recent technological advances. In many chat protection personnel are far from meeting the demand. groups, there are regular webinars or even weekly open With the modern popularity of smart phones, broad 4G courses. Some environmental enterprises and researchers network coverage, and widespread application of real-time choose to share their technical research and application mobile communications software, mobile social networks may cases in these webinars or open courses with hundreds or become a powerful tool for environmental practitioners to even thousands of audience, they present their recent bridge these gaps. In China, more and more environmental technological advances with pictures and videos, explain practitioners are choosing mobile social networks as their main them with text or voice message, and discuss problems communication tool with other practitioners, which are equal, with the audience. In October, 2016, even a Canadian free, efficient and low-carbon−these are leading to an company Enpar introduced its membrane capacitive empowerment of environmental protection practices. Chat deionization technology and practice cases to over 1000 groups, subscription accounts, and bulletin board system based on mobile instant message apps are the three most popular mobile social network tools for environmental practitioners, Received: November 24, 2016 including scientists, government policy makers, environmental Published: February 2, 2017
H
© 2017 American Chemical Society
1944
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b05934 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2017, 51, 1944−1945
Viewpoint
Environmental Science & Technology
Figure 1. Mobile social networks bridge the gaps between different environmental practitioners groups.
■
Chinese wastewater treatment practitioners in this way, which greatly helped to promote the emerging technology. 3. Looking for potential collaborators. Due to the diversity of groups and members, one can easily post his cooperation needs in the groups−for example, procuring poly aluminum chloride or a magnetic suspension centrifugal blower, or treatment of industrial wastewater with high concentration pollutants. Researchers can also find their own research topics from published needs and discussions, and look for potential industry partners. Subscription accounts that send regular promotional messages to subscribers by mobile social networks are also very popular for Chinese environmental practitioners. These environmental subscription accounts are operated by international organizations, national and local environmental protection agencies, industry associations, corporations, and individuals. One can choose to subscribe their subscription accounts according to their interests or set up his own subscription account to attract subscribers. Everyday a variety of timely information will be pushed to your phone−for example, one can get the latest environmental policy, environmental news, introduction to emerging technologies, environmental facilities operation and management experiences and so on. Even the declining environmental discussion forums begin to show a new influence to the environmental practitioners in China with the help of mobile network. Professionals who prefer the discussion forums can access the system with their smart phones, where they ask and answer questions, and share information and needs. The advantage of environmental discussion forums is that you can keep discussion information forever; in the past, you needed a computer to access the history discussion, but today one can search the discussion archive easily via their smart phone. Generally, environmental protection cannot be solved only by progress in science and technology, it also needs the connection and cooperation of different groups. In practice, making the advantage of mobile social networks is suggested to speed up the efficiency of information exchange and bridge the gaps between different groups in the environmental industry. Although there are problems such as flooding of information, incorrect information, and lack of intellectual property protection, mobile social networks will eventually have a profound impact on the environmental industry.
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Corresponding Author
*Phone: +86-86286838; fax: +86-0451-86286838; e-mail: hit.
[email protected]. ORCID
Zhao Zhang: 0000-0001-9489-8146 Notes
The author declares no competing financial interest.
■
REFERENCES
(1) Sedlak, D. Water 4.0: The Past, Present, and Future of the World’s Most Vital Resource; Yale University Press, 2014. (2) Surowiecki, J. The Wisdom of Crowds; Anchor, 2005.
1945
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6b05934 Environ. Sci. Technol. 2017, 51, 1944−1945
