Seeing her young daughter’s eyes widen in shock, Chen Xian leaned over to read the message the girl had just received on her smartwatch: “Let’s all die together!”

Stunned, Chen instantly grabbed the device from her child’s wrist, took screenshots for evidence, and instructed her daughter — who’s only in second grade of elementary school — to exit the group chat where the message had been posted by an older classmate on an extracurricular course.

Chen, who is from the eastern Zhejiang province, was relieved that her daughter had thought to show her the message, but she worried about those children in the group who aren’t so open with their parents about their online activities. “My daughter told me right away, but that doesn’t mean other kids would, especially teens,” she says.

The incident highlights the growing concerns many parents have about smartwatches, which for several years have been promoted in China as a safer alternative to smartphones for pre-adolescent youths. Originally designed to handle limited calls and for location tracking, the technology now introduces children to a complex, and sometimes dark, digital ecosystem.

Experts say the largely unpoliced online communities, or “watch circles,” being created by children of all ages reflect both their changing social needs and the steep challenges facing parents in the internet age.

A brave new world

When Liu Meng received her first smartwatch in 2017, at age 10, it was a godsend.

For the longest time, she’d been a social outcast because of her communication difficulties. At elementary school, just saying “hello” was a struggle at times, and when others initiated conversations, her anxiety could get so bad it would cause an extreme reaction such as screaming or banging her head against the wall.

Liu, who is from Guangzhou, capital of the southern Guangdong province, was eventually diagnosed in middle school with Asperger’s syndrome, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum that can severely affect a person’s ability to communicate and interact socially. However, this only came after she had endured years of verbal and physical bullying from her classmates.

Things began to change for Liu in fifth grade when her parents agreed to buy her a smartwatch produced by a major Chinese brand. She began asking for one after noticing that many of her classmates were “bumping” — touching their devices together — to connect as online friends during breaktimes (many Chinese schools have banned wearable technology from the classroom).

Wang Ting, Liu’s mother, had simply felt the location-tracking function would help ensure her daughter’s safety — she never expected it would be Liu’s gateway to an entirely new world.

After getting the device, Liu quickly noted how peers using the same brand of watch were creating and joining group chats based on shared interests, such as anime, sports, art, and voice acting. Interacting with fellow members was known as “circle diving,” with most participants aged 11 to 15.

Just like Instagram, WeChat, and other social media platforms, the smartwatch platform allows users to post updates for their contacts to like or comment on. Liu had a friend who was getting 70 to 80 likes on each post, so she set that as her benchmark. She became active in multiple group chats, striking up conversations with strangers on everything from hobbies and family to life experiences.

She approached each chat like a math problem, sometimes spending more than an hour crafting a single message or post. She began pouring her heart out online, revealing almost every detail of her life — “I’m starving,” “Just got home,” “I’m so tired,” “I’m so sad” — sometimes posting 20 or 30 times a day.

And her efforts appeared to pay off — by ninth grade, she had amassed almost the maximum 150 connections, and was hitting her targets for likes and comments. “It made me feel seen and respected,” Liu says. Although she enjoyed a good relationship with her parents, she yearned for the emotional bonds only her peers could provide.

Explicit instructions

Liu was 13 when she first encountered the dark side of watch circles. One summer night, she was added to an unfamiliar group chat where she was suddenly bombarded with adult content, including crude jokes and explicit photos.

Shortly after accepting a friend request from a boy in the group, he sent a message that read: “I like you. Will you go out with me?”

Liu was no stranger to the “dating scene” that existed in these circles. Users and matchmakers would commonly post lonely heart-style ads, such as “Boy, 12-13, seeks girl, 11-12, pretty, with a nice voice,” along with an appeal for photos.

In fact, Liu found a boyfriend in virtually the first group chat she joined. After adding her as a friend, the boy sent a photo of his collarbone and asked for pictures of her in return. Later, she saw him posting explicit remarks and photos, and suggestive memes in the group.

She also heard about groups where girls were pressured to send nudes, with boys giving them “reward points,” which affect a user’s ranking on the platform and can be exchanged for school supplies.

Liu, now almost 18, recalls being both shocked and intrigued. “Back when I was going through puberty, I was completely naïve about all this stuff,” she says. “I just thought talking that way would make me fit in.”

Wang was well aware of her daughter’s activities online, as Liu saw her parents as confidants and shared nearly everything with them. However, Wang grew concerned when she discovered Liu’s online boyfriend had asked for intimate photos. She made it clear that this was off-limits and enrolled Liu in a sex education summer camp.

Later, during a video call, the boyfriend exposed himself and pressured Liu to do the same. When she refused, he broke up with her.

Her parents also believe that watch circles contributed to Liu’s increasingly unstable emotional state in the run-up to China’s high school entrance exams. With just three months to go, teachers advised that she take a leave of absence after a video emerged of Liu rolling on the floor of a classroom before rushing out. Shortly after, she was placed on medication for severe depression.

While the Asperger’s syndrome and academic pressure no doubt played a part in the breakdown, Wang and Liu’s therapist also felt that she had become overstimulated by her online socializing.

Yet, Wang decided not to take away her daughter’s smartwatch. After all, it had helped Liu experience many firsts, such as her first close friendship and first romance. “These were all new to her,” she says. “But she took everything people said as genuine, not realizing it was just social media chatter. That’s why she got so excited.”

By that point, Liu’s smartwatch had become an emotional lifeline. She estimates that by ninth grade, she was spending about 90 minutes every day liking her friends’ posts.

However, the platform’s strict daily limits on how many likes users can give and receive naturally created a social hierarchy and, for some, led to obsession. “Everyone had their own strategy,” Liu says. “Some would stay up until midnight when the likes limit was reset, while others would set alarms for 5 a.m. just to give likes early. This was people’s daily routine.”

When she first started entering group chats, as she lacked social skills, Liu would initially observe and mimic others, practice joking tones in front of a mirror, and role-play various interactions. She often talked to herself while eating or walking, sometimes drawing strange looks from passersby.

She gradually became more adept at communication, and in early 2022, her page hit 100,000 likes. Liu remembers how it felt when people started reaching out, liking her posts, and expressing their admiration, calling her “cute” and “beautiful.” It was the first time she had ever felt popular.

Eye contact

Despite the clear dangers posed to vulnerable youths, parents have accused smartwatch manufacturers of being too slow to respond to security issues.

After her daughter received the “suicide pact” post, Chen made a complaint to the tech company that made the watch and asked why such sensitive content wasn’t blocked in group chats on its platform. Some brands have a chat assistant feature that aims to maintain a safe online space for minors by filtering out inappropriate content.

At first, the customer service operator that Chen spoke with suggested she was overreacting to a “child’s joke,” which only incensed her. Eventually, the company backtracked and promised to add the word “die” to its list of banned words.

However, the rules are still easily circumvented. While text is filtered in group chats on several platforms, problematic voice messages appear to get through unchecked.

“This is exactly why parents need to stay engaged,” Chen says, explaining that before the incident, she’d failed to thoroughly examine every complicated feature on her daughter’s smartwatch. For example, it was only later that she discovered that the “bump” function to connect with others doesn’t require parental approval. “It’s like smartphones — even adults don’t fully understand all the features,” she adds.

Chen also observed that the content her daughter’s friends posted on their feed was generally negative, mostly things like “I’m bored.” She decided to disable that function and several others on her daughter’s device, although the girl once admitted to secretly planning to unlock the functions while her mother slept.

“I know taking away the watch would be a bit heavy-handed, but I’m at a loss sometimes for how to find the right balance,” Chen says.

It’s a common dilemma for parents, according to Cai Dan, dean of Shanghai Normal University’s School of Psychology. He explains that watch circles highlight a key dynamic of child development: as pre-teens, we prioritize our parents; in adolescence, the desire to connect with peers significantly intensifies.

As a result, smartwatches have become “badges of belonging” for children. “Using the same model of smartwatch to ‘bump’ and add friends is an important way for kids to build their in-groups,” he says. “The social feed feature also provides crucial emotional resonance. In this virtual space, children can vent about academic pressure or daily struggles, and find comfort in knowing their peers are going through the same.”

However, no matter how convenient, online socializing cannot replace the emotional value of face-to-face interactions, Cai adds. “Artificial intelligence and electronic products transfer information and knowledge, but the heart of social skills — empathy, cooperation, helping others — are cultivated through real eye contact and body language.”

He says becoming too immersed in the internet is often a red flag — a sign that the child is not finding enough fulfillment in the real world — but advises parents against “harsh interference,” and instead urges them to allow their children to make mistakes within a controlled range, while conveying the correct values and moral standards.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released on May 13 a series of draft national standards for children’s smartwatches, to solicit public feedback. The document focuses on user data protection and proposes establishing dedicated content for children to share on such platforms.

Lived experience

In January, Wang Ting and her husband traveled with Liu by high-speed train to the eastern Anhui province so that their daughter could meet with her new online boyfriend.

On the day, they watched from their hotel window as the young couple met in the flesh for the first time, and only relaxed once she’d returned safely and reported having a great time.

“Dating is an incredibly intimate form of socializing. Through interacting with the opposite gender, she can gradually learn to express emotions normally,” Wang says, adding that they had worked closely with Liu’s therapist to monitor her mental state, supporting controlled online socializing with appropriate intervention and guidance.

After starting high school, Liu’s obsession with the watch circles quickly began to wane. Despite investing much time and energy, she’d had limited emotional returns, and she was starting to notice how materialistic, complex, and even toxic they could be at times.

Over the years, she says, the group chats focused on various hobbies largely disappeared and were replaced by “like farms” and discussions on software that users can buy for about 100 yuan ($14) that allows them to give all their friends a thumbs-up within just five minutes.

“People were requiring friends to like their homepage before midnight. Those who didn’t would be removed from their friends list,” she recalls, adding that after taking a break from using her smartwatch for four months, she checked to find that several contacts had already deleted her.

For Liu, watch circles are a closed chapter in her life story, yet she’s recently been sharing her experience on the lifestyle app Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, to show how such groups can help children like her who struggle to fit in.

“It was where I learned who I really was, how to talk to people, when to step back, and how to face the world through trial and error,” she says. “These weren’t things anyone could just tell me. I had to live that experience.”

(Due to privacy concerns, all names except Cai Dan are pseudonyms.)

Reported by Li Ang, Zhu Yawen, and Sun Yiyang.

A version of this article originally appeared in Original (Jiefang Daily). It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is republished here with permission.

Translator: Chen Yue; editors: Wang Juyi and Hao Qibao.

(Header image: VCG)