Virtual Friends, Real Loneliness.docVIP

Virtual Friends, Real Loneliness 　　Dressed in a revealing bikini top， Han Lu grabbed her smartphone， opened the app “17” and focused the camera on herself. She was fulfilling a promise she had made to her followers the day before， to give them a bikini-clad show. 　　A flood of real-time comments and requests popped up on her cellphone screen. “Hi babe， which floor do you live on？” One man asked. As a response， she walked out to the balcony， flipped the camera so it focused on the night scene outside and murmured， “Can you guess？” 　　“Lower your phone. I want to see more of you，” another man requested. Han Lu smiled and obliged him. Perhaps she was motivated by the fact that the more followers she accrues on 17， the more money she can make from it. But when her fans made more explicit requests， the 26-year-old declined. 　　This is a typical tableau for 17 app users. A young woman starts a live-stream to share a slice of her life through her smartphone camera， which attracts a horde of viewers who flock to her page， check her out，“like” her stream， share it， leave comments and make requests. 　　Since Taiwanese-American celebrity Jeffrey Huangs company launched the app on June 5， 2015， 17 has gone viral in China and other Asian countries， such as Singapore and Malaysia. Similar to its international equivalents like Periscope and Meerkat， 17 allows users to live-stream footage right from their cellphones while viewers chat with them in real time. The app topped the Chinese App Store’s list of top free apps on September 25， less than four months after its debut. It has 2.2 million registered accounts， and 700，000 to 900，000 active users who check the app every day. 　　Just a few days after topping the charts， however， 17 was suddenly removed by the App Store without warning on September 29， staying down for about a month before it popped back up on virtual shelves. It performed a similar vanishing act in the Google Play store as well. The reason for its temporary disappe