換個(gè)“傻瓜手機(jī)”明智嗎？

I’ve recently found myself wondering if I could do without Google Maps. It is, I think, the only app on my phone I’d really miss were I to swap my smartphone for a “dumb” one that handles only calls and text messages.

我最近一直在想一個(gè)問題：如果沒有谷歌地圖，我還能不能正常地生活?我想，如果我要將現(xiàn)在的智能手機(jī)換成只能打電話、發(fā)短信的“傻瓜”手機(jī)，谷歌地圖可能是我唯一真正想念的一個(gè)應(yīng)用了。

Why am I thinking about this? It’s because every time I try to read a book, I end up picking up my phone instead. I convince myself that I need to google something, something important, and, 30 minutes later, I’m scrolling through Facebook or Twitter with all sense of time and purpose lost. I’ve taken to turning off my phone, but then I turn it back on. I’ve tried hiding all my colourful apps in little folders, but that doesn’t really work. I keep interrupting my own train of thought in order to do something that I don’t consciously want to do.

我為什么會(huì)想這個(gè)問題呢? 因?yàn)槊慨?dāng)我想讀會(huì)兒書時(shí)，我最終拿起的卻是手機(jī)。我說服自己說，我需要用谷歌搜索一些東西，一些重要的東西，可是30分鐘后，我還在查看Facebook或推特(Twitter)，時(shí)間觀念和目的性完全丟失。我曾經(jīng)將手機(jī)關(guān)上，可隨后再度開機(jī)。我也嘗試過將所有花花綠綠的應(yīng)用程序隱藏在一個(gè)個(gè)小文件夾中，但這并不奏效。為了做一些我不是有意識(shí)想做的事情，我不停地打斷自己的思路。

This is not accidental. Developers have become ever more brazen in their attempts to keep us hooked on our smartphones. Some of them speak in the language of addiction and behavioural psychology, though most prefer the term “persuasive tech”. In itself, persuasive tech is not a new idea — an academic named BJ Fogg has been running classes from a “persuasive tech lab” at Stanford since the late 1990s. But as smartphone ownership has rocketed and social-media sites have been born, persuasive tech has vastly expanded its reach.

發(fā)生這一切不是偶然的。為了讓我們一刻都離不開我們的智能手機(jī)，開發(fā)人員的手段越來越肆無忌憚了。一些人憑借的是成癮和行為心理學(xué)，但大多數(shù)人喜歡用“說服技術(shù)”這一術(shù)語。“說服技術(shù)”本身并不是一個(gè)新的想法——一位名叫B•J•福格(BJ Fogg)的學(xué)者自上世紀(jì)九十年代末以來就一直在斯坦福大學(xué)“說服技術(shù)實(shí)驗(yàn)室”( persuasive tech lab)講授這一課程。但隨著智能手機(jī)保有量大幅增長和社交媒體網(wǎng)站的出現(xiàn)，“說服技術(shù)”的應(yīng)用更加廣泛了。

One company, Dopamine Labs — named for the chemical released in the reward centre of the brain — offers a service to tech businesses wanting to “keep users engaged”. Founded by two neuroscientists-turned-programmers, it explicitly talks about using artificial intelligence to modify apps and release dopamine hits to “surprise and hook each user”. Loosely translated, in case it’s not terrifying enough: robots are trying to alter your brain chemistry to make you spend more time doing something you don’t want to do.

一家名叫“多巴胺實(shí)驗(yàn)室”(Dopamine Labs)的公司——以大腦的獎(jiǎng)勵(lì)中心釋放的化學(xué)物質(zhì)多巴胺命名——為希望“留住用戶”的科技企業(yè)提供此類服務(wù)。該公司的兩位創(chuàng)始人曾經(jīng)是神經(jīng)科學(xué)家，后轉(zhuǎn)行當(dāng)程序員。該公司明確地談到使用人工智能來修改應(yīng)用程序，釋放令人產(chǎn)生愉悅情緒的多巴胺“來給每位用戶帶來驚喜，并讓其無法自拔”。如果這種說法還不夠嚇人的話，我們可以將其更通俗地解釋為：機(jī)器人正試圖改變你大腦中的化學(xué)成份，讓你花更多時(shí)間做你不想做的事情。

Dopamine Labs is interesting, though, because it also offers an antidote service — an app that tries to help users regain control.

不過，多巴胺實(shí)驗(yàn)室真是一家有趣的公司，因?yàn)樗€提供“戒毒”服務(wù) ——一個(gè)試圖幫助用戶重新獲得自控力的應(yīng)用程序。

Founder Ramsay Brown tells me he wants people to understand that “their thoughts and feelings are on the table as things that can be controlled and designed”. He thinks there should be more conversation around the persuasive power of the technologies being used. “We believe everyone has a right to cognitive liberty, and to build the kind of mind they want to live in,” he says.

該公司創(chuàng)始人拉姆齊•布朗(Ramsay Brown)對(duì)我說，他希望大家明白，“他們的想法和感受都被擺到桌面上，成為可以被控制和設(shè)計(jì)的東西”。他認(rèn)為，應(yīng)該對(duì)“說服技術(shù)”的使用進(jìn)行更廣泛的討論。“我們認(rèn)為，每個(gè)人都有權(quán)獲得認(rèn)知自由，并建立一種自己所期望的思維狀態(tài)。”他說。

Dopamine Labs’ app — Space — springs from the idea that technology can help us change the way we use it, by encouraging us to resist the lure of the smartphone and spend our time online more productively.

多巴胺實(shí)驗(yàn)室的一款應(yīng)用——Space ——源于如下想法，即技術(shù)可以通過鼓勵(lì)我們抵制智能手機(jī)的誘惑、更有效地利用我們上網(wǎng)的時(shí)間，來幫助我們改變使用技術(shù)的方式。

There are two main ways the tech world seeks to help us regain our self-control. Space opts for the “mindfulness” approach, asking us to breathe slowly for a few seconds before it loads an app. The alternative is the cold turkey option — which seems appealing, though it comes with obvious practical problems.

技術(shù)界試圖幫助我們重新獲得自控力，主要有兩種方法。Space選擇了“正念”法，即要求我們?cè)诩虞d應(yīng)用前放慢呼吸幾秒鐘。 另一種方法就是冷火雞法(指突然而徹底地戒斷——譯者注)——這種方法似乎很有吸引力，但會(huì)遇到明顯的實(shí)際問題。

The poster child of the resistance movement against addictive apps is former Google “design ethicist” Tristan Harris. He thinks the power to change the system lies not with app developers but with the hardware providers. In 2014, Harris founded “Time Well Spent”, a group that campaigns for more ethical design practices among developers. When I ask him about this, he drops in phrases such as “brain hacking” — which seem extreme until you remember that there’s a company called Dopamine Labs.

抵制易上癮應(yīng)用運(yùn)動(dòng)的代表人物是前谷歌“設(shè)計(jì)倫理學(xué)家”特里斯坦•哈里斯(Tristan Harris)。他認(rèn)為，改變目前這一體系的力量不掌握在應(yīng)用開發(fā)人員手上，而掌握在硬件提供商手中。早在2014年，哈里斯就發(fā)起了名叫一個(gè)“光陰不虛度”(Time Well Spent)組織，呼吁開發(fā)公司在應(yīng)用開發(fā)過程中堅(jiān)持設(shè)計(jì)倫理。當(dāng)我就這個(gè)問題向他提問時(shí)，他使用了諸如“大腦黑客”(brain hacking)這樣的詞語—— 他的用詞似乎有些極端，不過轉(zhuǎn)念一想并不——畢竟有一家公司就叫多巴胺實(shí)驗(yàn)室。

Any tech business that relies on advertising revenues is incentivised to hold its users online for as long as possible, Harris says. This means apps are specifically designed to keep us in them. Apple, on the other hand, wants to sell phones but doesn’t have a revenue stream so rigidly correlated to the amount of time its customers spend online. Harris hopes that companies like Apple could use their influence to boost more ethically designed apps.

哈里斯說，任何依賴廣告收入的科技企業(yè)都在設(shè)法盡可能長時(shí)間把用戶留在網(wǎng)上。這意味著應(yīng)用程序是專門設(shè)計(jì)來鉤住用戶的。另一方面，蘋果期望的是銷售手機(jī)，他們的收入與客戶在線時(shí)間的關(guān)聯(lián)性不是那么強(qiáng)。哈里斯希望像蘋果這樣的公司可以利用他們的影響力來推動(dòng)應(yīng)用更符合設(shè)計(jì)倫理。

While I wait for Apple to sort this out, I find myself longing for something called a “Light Phone”, a credit-card-sized handset that does absolutely nothing but make and receive calls. Price tag? $150. Seems expensive. But the company’s website is very persuasive.

在我等待蘋果來解決這個(gè)問題之際，我發(fā)現(xiàn)自己心心念念想買一部Light Phone，這款手機(jī)就像信用卡那么大，除撥打和接聽電話外，沒有其它功能。價(jià)格嘛，150美元?似乎有點(diǎn)貴。不過，Light Phone公司網(wǎng)站上的介紹很讓人動(dòng)心。

Aime Williams is an FT Money reporter

插圖由克里斯托弗•德洛倫佐(Christopher De Lorenzo)提供