On WeChat, one of China’s most popular social media platforms, the “Moments” feature has become a daily part of people’s social lives. Yet a simple setting — “visible for three days only” — has sparked a quiet debate.

Li Jia, a 19-year-old college student, thinks the three-day limit is unnecessary. “Most people are too busy with their own lives to care much about others’ Moments,” she says. “Our daily life doesn’t have that many ‘audience members’. Keeping posts visible forever or just for three days makes no real difference to others.” For her, Moments is a place to record life’s little moments, not something to rush to “hide” after a short time.

Wang Min, a 24-year-old designer, holds the opposite view — she believes the three-day visibility is not just necessary but essential. “I often share work-in-progress sketches or casual thoughts on Moments, but many of them are temporary,” she explains. “Leaving all posts visible forever feels like leaving my ‘unpolished self’ exposed to everyone, including future clients or acquaintances I barely know. The three-day limit acts like a ‘filter’: it lets me share freely in the moment.” She adds that it also helps her avoid awkwardness from old posts that no longer reflect who she is now.

Chen Yu, a 20-year-old sociology student, argues that the core issue lies in the lack of flexible options. “The current ‘all open’ or ‘three-day only’ is too black-and-white,” she says. “What we really need is a custom visibility setting. For instance, I’d keep all posts open to my family and closest friends — they care about my daily life and old memories. But for new contacts, I’d set posts to three-day visibility, so they only see my recent updates without digging into my past. Even better, let users choose specific time frames, like ‘visible for a week’ for travel photos or ‘permanent’ for important life milestones like graduation. This way, we don’t have to compromise between sharing freely and protecting privacy.”

In the end, whether to choose three-day visibility or not is more than a personal preference — it’s a reflection of how young people navigate (成功应付) self-expression in the digital world.