“時刻保持聯(lián)系”是一種暴政

The Tyranny of Constant Contact

“時刻保持聯(lián)系”是一種暴政

Everything I know about the Internet, I learned from my 87-year-old mother.

我對于互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的了解，都是來自于87歲的老媽。

Like, the harder you hit “Send,” the faster the email travels. If you want wholly to colonize your reader’s subconscious, just end your email or text right in the middle of the. If you’re still not sure your reader is fully invested, simPLY LEAN ON YOUR CAPS LOCK TO IMBUE YOUR MISSIVE WITH A THROBBING IMMEDIACY.

比如，點(diǎn)“發(fā)送”鍵點(diǎn)得越用力，郵件就發(fā)送得越快。如果你想完全占據(jù)收件人的潛意識，那么把the寫到一半就結(jié)束郵件或短信。如果你仍不能確定收信人是否全情投入，只需在一個單詞沒寫完就切換成大寫，讓你的信件充滿令人震撼的緊迫性。

But Mom’s larger message is that the Internet and cellphones have created a kind of tyranny of connectedness: Even those of us who don’t have small children or jobs with the State Department, it seems, now need to be accessible at all hours of the day. It’s as if we’re doctors on call.

不過，媽媽對互聯(lián)網(wǎng)和手機(jī)更宏觀的理解是，它們制造出一種相互聯(lián)系的暴政：如今，連我們這些沒有小孩或不在國務(wù)院工作的人也似乎需要能夠全天候保持聯(lián)系。好像我們是隨時待命的醫(yī)生。

Like Madonna confessing that during her marriage to Guy Ritchie each kept a BlackBerry tucked under their pillows at night, we have to keep up standards. If you go to the theater and discover your phone has died, you better borrow a seat mate’s phone and pre-emptively call the last five people you spoke to; if there’s a glitch in Gmail, you better start checking all your other portals with an assiduousness that verges on the robotic.

麥當(dāng)娜(Madonna)承認(rèn)，在她和蓋伊·里奇(Guy Ritchie)的婚姻期間，晚上兩人枕頭底下都放著一部黑莓手機(jī)。我們也要達(dá)到標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。如果去劇院發(fā)現(xiàn)手機(jī)沒電了，最好借鄰座的手機(jī)，先給最近通話的五個人打電話說一聲。如果Gmail郵箱出了點(diǎn)小故障，最好馬上查看其他所有的門戶網(wǎng)站，在這方面應(yīng)該像機(jī)器人一樣勤勉。

In my own effort to stay afloat the data surf, I subscribe to two policies. First, if it takes me more than 24 hours to respond to an email, I’ll apologize to the sender; after a day, the failure to respond betrays disinterest, concern or alcohol poisoning.

為了在數(shù)字世界里立于不敗之地，我給自己定了兩條規(guī)矩：第一，如果超過24小時沒有回復(fù)郵件，我會給發(fā)信人道歉。因?yàn)槌^一天不回復(fù)，對方會以為我沒興趣、不關(guān)心或者酒精中毒了。

Second, in the intimacy-based communications hierarchy (with a face-to-face meeting or a phone call being at the top, and tying a message to a rock and then burying the rock in the dirt being at the bottom), I try always to meet the incoming vehicle at its level or higher. You can’t answer a phone call with a message on FarmVille.

第二，在以親密關(guān)系為基礎(chǔ)的交流等級中(面對面溝通或打電話屬于最高級別，用石頭來傳遞信息屬于最低級別)，我總是努力以同等或更高的交流級別回復(fù)對方。對方要是打電話，你就不能在FarmVille上發(fā)消息回復(fù)。

My methods seem to work well enough. But daily I see others struggle. “I was in the recording studio the other day,” the producer and jazz trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis said. “I’d hired five musicians. We were in the studio for seven or eight hours. One of the musicians was 100 percent committed, no interruptions. He will be hired again. By contrast the bassist stayed on his phone throughout the session, doing social media. He will only be hired again if I can’t find someone else.”

我的原則似乎收到了不錯的效果。但是我每天都能看到其他人的掙扎。“有一天，我在錄音棚里，”制作人、爵士樂長號手戴爾菲尤·馬薩利斯 (Delfeayo Marsalis)說，“我雇了五位樂手。我們在錄音棚里待了七八個小時。其中一位樂手全神貫注，沒有受到任何干擾。下次我肯定還會雇傭他。相比之下，那位貝斯手在錄音過程中一直看手機(jī)，玩社交媒體。以后我只會在找不到其他人的情況下，才會雇傭他。”

Asked what dark, tangled forces may have prompted the bassist’s behavior, Mr. Marsalis said: “There’s a fear that: ‘Hey, I’m doing this session with you, but another guy might call me and give me a gig that pays $10 an hour. I can’t miss that call.’ ”

當(dāng)被問及那位貝斯手是出于什么陰暗復(fù)雜的考慮才做出那種行為時，馬薩利斯說，“我覺得他是這樣想的：‘嘿，這次我是和你一起錄音，但是別人可能會給我打電話，提供每小時10美元的現(xiàn)場演出機(jī)會。我不能錯過那樣的電話。’”

When she was a sophomore at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2011, Elisabeth Chramer and her communications class were asked by their professor to refrain from any cellphone or electronic use for 72 hours.

2011年，伊麗莎白·克拉默(Elisabeth Chramer)在亞拉巴馬大學(xué)伯明翰分校上大二。當(dāng)時，通訊課的教授要求班上的學(xué)生72小時不使用手機(jī)或其他任何電子設(shè)備。

“There were a few students who could not complete the assignment,” she said. “They just could not isolate themselves.” Ms. Chramer, who now operates her own customized embroidery company, added that one of the huge challenges of communicating with members of her generation is their varied response time: “It’s either instantaneous or it’s a week later. People go from platform to platform. You have to catch them while they’re on a certain platform, or you wait a week.”

“有幾位同學(xué)無法完成老師布置的這項任務(wù)，”她說，“他們就是無法把自己與其他人隔離起來。”克拉默現(xiàn)在經(jīng)營自己的訂制刺繡公司。她補(bǔ)充說，跟她這一代人溝通的一個巨大挑戰(zhàn)是，每個人的回復(fù)時間不同：“有的是立即回復(fù)，有的是一周后回復(fù)。人們在不同的溝通平臺之間切換。你必須在他們在某個平臺上時聯(lián)系上他們，否則就得等一星期。”

The more messaging platforms and types of social media that we welcome into the world, the more our communication skills are scattered and made diffuse; every year, we have ever-sophisticated ways to approach the microphone and mumble, “’Sup?” Thus it’s interesting to see the workarounds that people use to keep their interactions from dissolving into a meaningless spray of pixels.

我們接受的信息平臺和社交媒體種類越多，我們的溝通方式就變得越分散。每年，我們對著麥克風(fēng)咕噥“什么事?”時所借助的平臺變得越來越復(fù)雜多樣。所以，有趣的是，人們開始使用各種變通方式，防止相互交流變得太過分散，失去意義。

The entrepreneur and philanthropist John Paul DeJoria, a founder of the Patrón Spirits Company and the Paul Mitchell line of hair care products, does not use email even though he presides over a multibillion-dollar empire.

企業(yè)家、慈善家約翰·保羅·德約里爾(John Paul DeJoria)是培恩烈酒公司(Patrón Spirits Company)和寶美奇(Paul Mitchell)護(hù)發(fā)產(chǎn)品公司的創(chuàng)始人。盡管他管理著一個價值數(shù)十億美元的帝國，但他從不使用電子郵件。

“I would be so inundated that I wouldn’t be able to get off the computer,” he said. “My executive director only brings me messages that are important. I teach the people around me to pay attention to the vital few and ignore the trivial many.”

“否則我將被郵件淹沒，無法從電腦前脫身，”他說，“我的執(zhí)行理事只把重要消息轉(zhuǎn)達(dá)給我。我教導(dǎo)我身邊的人只關(guān)注少數(shù)至關(guān)重要的事，忽略很多無關(guān)緊要的事。”

Mr. DeJoria added: “A personal phone call to someone means the world. Or if somebody writes me a letter and there’s enough room on that letter, I will handwrite my answer on the letter and either mail it back or, if they have a fax, fax it to them.”

德約里爾補(bǔ)充說，“親自打電話意義重大。或者，要是有人給我寫了一封信，信的下方還有足夠的空間，我會在空白處回復(fù)，然后把信寄回去，或者要是對方有傳真，就傳真過去。”

Mr. Marsalis, who wrote a children’s book “No Cell Phone Day” about a father and daughter who spend the best day of their lives when they temporarily put aside mobile technology, said that he often imposes restrictions on his 14-year-old daughter and her friends.

馬薩利斯寫過一本童書，名叫《無手機(jī)日》(No Cell Phone Day)，講述的一對父女暫時拋開移動技術(shù)，度過了人生中最美好的一天。他說，他經(jīng)常對14歲的女兒和她的朋友們在使用手機(jī)方面加以約束。

“I won’t allow cellphones in the car,” he said. “When her cousins come to visit, I tell their parents, ‘Your child will not be available to you for the next four hours.’ ” Mr. Marsalis said the parents’ reaction is usually rhapsodic.

“我不允許在車?yán)锸褂檬謾C(jī)，”他說，“她的堂(表)兄弟姐妹來我家玩時，我會對他們的父母說，‘在接下來的四個小時里，你們將跟孩子聯(lián)系不上。’”馬薩利斯說，那些父母們的反應(yīng)通常是狂喜。

But workarounds, of course, can work around in the other direction, too.

當(dāng)然，也有其他一些變通方式。

When Washingtonian magazine published an article in January about Green Bank, W.Va., where wireless Internet is outlawed because the town is host to a high-tech government telescope “so sensitive that it can pick up the energy equivalent of a single snowflake hitting the ground,” the magazine also reported that, according to one seventh grader, many children in the area connect to home Wi-Fi networks and then use the texting functions in Facebook and Snapchat to talk to their friends.

今年1月，《華盛頓人》(Washingtonian)雜志發(fā)表了一篇文章，講述的是西弗吉尼亞州的綠岸(Green Bank)。在那里，無線網(wǎng)絡(luò)是非法的，因?yàn)樵撴?zhèn)是一架政府的高科技望遠(yuǎn)鏡的所在地，這架望遠(yuǎn)鏡“非常靈敏，連雪花觸地大小的能量都能捕獲”。該雜志還報道說，據(jù)一位七年級學(xué)生說，該地區(qū)的很多孩子連上家里的無線網(wǎng)絡(luò)，然后用Facebook和Snapchat上的短信功能與朋友交談。

Genaro Cortez, a lawyer in San Antonio, said that he once told all his clients that he was going to a criminal law conference in San Diego, and then set up an automatic Out of the Office email to the same effect. Nevertheless, during the conference, one of his clients texted him about a hearing scheduled for the following week. Mr. Cortez said that in this instance he responded because the question posed was legitimate and didn’t inconvenience him.

赫納羅·科爾特斯(Genaro Cortez)是圣安東尼奧市的一位律師。他說，有一次，他告訴所有的客戶，他要去圣迭戈參加一個刑法大會，他還給郵件設(shè)置了“不在辦公室”的自動回復(fù)。盡管如此，在大會期間，他的一個客戶還是給他發(fā)短信，告訴他一場聽證會安排在接下來的一周舉行?？茽柼厮拐f，在這種情況下，他回復(fù)了，因?yàn)槟俏豢蛻籼岢龅膯栴}是合理的，沒有給他帶來不便。

“But it’s a matter of degree,” he said, “so long as the person texting or emailing doesn’t abuse the issue by contacting multiple times on frivolous matters.”

“但是，這有一個度的問題，”他說，“只要發(fā)短信或郵件的人沒有就無關(guān)緊要的事情多次聯(lián)系就行。”

In the end, it may be all but impossible to keep ourselves from scattering our online attentions to the point of meaninglessness.

說到底，我們幾乎不可能不分散在網(wǎng)上的注意力，甚至達(dá)到毫無意義的地步。

Eschewing the Internet altogether is an option. My mother estimates that about half the seniors in her retirement community aren’t online. “A lot of them are scared to death by the whole idea, by the infernal machine,” she told me. “You know the pathetic fallacy, where you ascribe human qualities to nonhuman things? It’s that. They ascribe human qualities to the computer. Like the computer is going to reach out and grab them.”

完全避開互聯(lián)網(wǎng)也是一種選擇。我媽媽估計，在她的退休社區(qū)里，約有一半老年人不上網(wǎng)。“他們很多人對互聯(lián)網(wǎng)這個概念感到害怕，覺得它像定時炸彈，” 她對我說，“你知道感情誤置吧?就是把人的特質(zhì)投射到無生命的東西上。就是這種情況。他們把人的特質(zhì)投射到電腦上。好像電腦會伸出手抓住他們。”

They’re entirely right.

他們沒錯。