Rewind the clock 30 years ago. For people at that time, 8 PM signified the beginning of the most ceremonious part of daily life.

For children, the dividing line between day and night wasn't sunset or darkness. It was when they were chasing each other in the yard, out of breath while trying to get the Shuihu cards from a pack of crispy noodles, and their mother shouted from upstairs, "It's already eight o'clock! Come home for dinner!"

For our parents' generation, overtime work hardly existed. Cities hadn't expanded that much yet, and many people's social circles didn't extend beyond a radius of three kilometers. So dinner was the time when every family would gather together every day. Children would play and fight all the way home, throw down their schoolbags, and then continue running around in the yard until they were dirty from head to toe. Every child knew that once eight o'clock arrived, they and their little friends had to go upstairs. When they got home, there would always be steaming hot meals laid out on the table.

At eight o'clock in the evening, the beeping sound of the national unified time announcement would ring simultaneously in countless pairs of earphones, and the most popular music programs on the radio would start at this time. Closing the door of the room and spreading out the test papers, children would write vigorously while guessing what song the DJ (disc jockey) would play next. These "8 PM shows" with only sound and no pictures constituted a small pleasure during their school days.

Meanwhile, couples were walking hand in hand through brightly lit night markets, passing by long queues for fried chicken strips, cool shrimp jelly, pearl milk tea, and kebabs.

Eight o'clock in the evening was the time when the flavor of daily life was the strongest and also the most desirable part in the memories of the previous era. All emotions were properly taken care of, and everyone had their own enjoyments and passions.

When people look back 30 years later and constantly feel nostalgic, what they are actually missing is the flavor of life that hadn't been disturbed or encroached upon by busyness yet.

Nowadays, people no longer mention the concept of "8 PM shows" because on most days, at eight o'clock in the evening, they are either working overtime or just getting on the subway to go home. The boundaries of cities are constantly expanding outward, and a one-hour one-way commute has become the norm. The windows of the subway reflect the "emotionally stable" faces of office workers.

The small round tables that used to seem crowded have now been replaced by spacious solid wood dining tables, but it's hard to get the whole family together for dinner again. Young people have become accustomed to staying at their workstations in cubicles and guarding their takeout boxes. No matter how you heat up pre-made dishes, they just don't have that "home-cooked flavor". But people who can't get off work have no other choice. They eat not-so-fresh pork rib rice, half-warm sandwiches, and tasteless rice noodles while looking at the PPTs and Word documents on the screen. If they don't finish the work today, there will be more and more work piled up for tomorrow.

The pace of life is getting faster and faster. Everyone in this era has become like a hamster on a running wheel. People have more possessions and higher efficiency and can meet more people, but they are increasingly confused about why they have these things and why they meet these people. Everyone is desperately pedaling the running wheel, making it spin so fast that it seems about to take off, and in turn, being dragged along by it, running non-stop.

If people enter the next stage of life and become parents, they will find that they can hardly distinguish which part of their time belongs to work and which part belongs to life. Work extends infinitely to eight, nine, or ten o'clock in the evening... and then seamlessly connects and overlaps with helping children with their homework, dealing with parents' trifles, etc. The time that truly belongs to themselves is postponed until late at night—if there's any time left at all.

The night is always filled with to-do lists.

There are countless new things on social platforms every day. You can start a new game on your mobile phone at any time. Even in a relationship, many young people have become accustomed to lying on their own sides of the bed, playing with their mobile phones, not sharing or chatting with each other. There are more and more forms of entertainment for people to happily kill time, but these are all prepared for being alone.

People who have lost their eight o'clock evenings need to "empty" their emotions—digest the pressure from the day alone and also get rid of the lingering "work smell". But even though their bodies have left work, their minds haven't. It's hard for them to break free from the working state even at night. So people immerse themselves in their respective screens. Although a family seems to be in the same space, they are actually far apart from each other.

Occasionally, people will remember the eight o'clock evenings in their childhood when the whole family huddled in the small living room, watching a small TV set. Now, the living rooms are getting more and more spacious, and the TV sets are getting bigger and bigger. However, the lights in the living rooms haven't been turned on for a long time, and few people remember to wipe the dust on the TV sets.

Is convenience and efficiency good or bad? No one will deny that the era of high-speed operation has brought richer materials and a more convenient life than in the past. But while running forward, people will still miss those eight o'clock evenings with only melon seeds, glass marbles, and one episode of a TV series every day. That was the time that should have belonged to life and should be given back to life.

The progress of science and technology is making the night have richer possibilities. What people can first get back is time. Intelligent home appliances free people from being tied up with housework. A food processor can simplify all the steps of cooking to "put all the ingredients into the machine". Cleaning the room can be simplified to "press the button of the robotic vacuum cleaner". The appearance of dishwashers enables people to avoid the pain of cleaning up after meals to the greatest extent. When people's hands are freed, there will be more time for them to leisurely enjoy life.

Technology also gives people the possibility to reconnect with each other. But different from the living rooms 30 years ago where people could only sit around waiting for the commercials to end and the TV series to start, modern living room life can be smarter, more diversified, and more in line with young people's requirements for the ideal eight o'clock evenings.

Today, at eight o'clock in the evening, binge-watching TV series can still be the highlight of this leisure time.

When we push open the door on time and sit beside our parents like we did in our childhood, and enter their spiritual lives through a large screen—does Dad still love watching movies or documentaries? Does Mom still prefer family dramas? Of course, what can make the elders happier is that we bring a bigger world to their eyes. For example, we can open a newly released movie, use our mobile phones to project it onto the large screen of the TV set with one click, let them experience the picture colors and textures as if they were in a cinema at home, and then chat with Dad about the movie plot, as if we were back in our primary school days.

If eight o'clock in the evening belongs to life again, young people who are working hard alone in distant places can have video calls with their families at a fixed time every day. Technology makes electronic products smarter and smarter. For example, the Huawei Smart Screen, apart from being an audio-visual device, can also replace mobile phones to make video calls. On the larger screen, we can see the wrinkles at the corners of Mom's eyes, the gray hair on Dad's temples, and, more importantly, the concerns and blessings of our relatives thousands of miles away.

Overtime work may still happen from time to time, but we can make an appointment with friends, put aside our mobile phones together at eight o'clock in the evening, and officially cut off from the working state. The hot pot is boiling with a "gudong gudong" sound. People who are determined not to bring their work emotions home are chatting and laughing in the thick steam, discussing shopping, traveling, and emotional life. After dinner, they can play a few games together, and what is projected onto the TV screen is the happiness that belongs to all friends.

Only when there is real life in life are the moments of the night worth looking forward to. The living rooms that haven't been properly used for a long time can also have their lights turned on again. Television was a symbol of the 1990s, and it has once again become a reflection of social emotions today. Behind this is the expectation of every ordinary person: to give time back to themselves and also give eight o'clock in the evening back to life.