手机依赖症是一种新型心理疾病，尤其青睐青年白领女性、业务担子重的中年男人和学生三类人。随着手机在中国普及率的快速提高，越来越多的手机持有者发现自己已经无法离开这个“爱物儿”，哪怕只是半天儿不见，也会魂不守舍，坐卧不宁。
——百度百科
手机上瘾？这锅你可不要背
作者：
JESUS DIAZ
译者：张力文
校对：刘 蕊
编辑：倪凌晖
How Evolutionary Biology Explains Smartphone Addiction
生物进化论是如何解释智能手机依赖症的？
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Do you feel like you’re addicted to Facebook? You’re just being human.
你是不是感觉你对脸书上瘾了？你这是作为人类的正常反应。
That’s according to a new research paper that argues for a new way of thinking about our phone addiction. The authors claim that hundreds of thousands of years of evolution made us social in order to survive–and social media simply is driving this deeply ingrained human behavior into overdrive. This isn’t actually all that bad, they say, if you follow two basic rules.
这个观点是根据一篇新的学术论文而来的。这篇文章提出了一个认识手机依赖症的新视角。作者表示，经过数十万年的进化，我们为了生存而喜好交际，而社交媒体不过是加剧了这一本就根植于人类群体之中的行为习惯而已。他们表示，事实上这并没有那么糟，只要你能遵循两个基本规则 。
But before getting to their recommendations, let’s consider the work of the authors, Samuel P. L. Veissière and Moriah Stendel, from McGill University in Montreal. They analyzed so-called screen addiction from a purely evolutionary perspective and concluded that smartphones are really an “unhealthy platform for a healthy impulse.” Evolutionary, anthropological, and behavioral sciences, they claim, clearly demonstrate that our species became successful precisely because of our need to seek information and to connect with and learn from peers. As part of this learning, humans also compare themselves to each other constantly. In the past, this comparison–finding and creating common patterns–made us form groups and eventually cultures.
但在介绍这两个基本规则之前，我们先来看一下这个研究。作为本篇论文的作者，萨穆埃尔·维塞尔和莫里亚·斯滕德尔任职于位于蒙特利尔的麦吉尔大学。他们从纯粹的进化学角度分析了所谓的屏幕依赖症，并得出结论：智能手机的确是一个“健康冲动的不健康平台”。他们认为，通过进化论、人类学和行为科学我们可以清楚地看到，正是因为我们需要获得信息、结交同龄人并向他们学习，我们作为人类这一种族才取得了成功。同时，在向同龄人学习的过程中，人类还不断把自己与别人做比较。这种寻找并创造共同模式的比较，让我们组成了群体，并最终形成了文化。
From that point of view, it makes sense to conclude that smartphones and social networks are not negative per se. “[T]here is nothing inherently addictive about mobile technology,” the authors claim. Our socially oriented brains trigger
dopamine
injections–a brain chemical that makes us feel good–when we connect to others and learn about them. This is what actually hooks us on our phones in the first place. In fact, they claim, these technologies were not noxious, to begin with. At first, they were extraordinary helpful tools to make us feel better by being more social in a more efficient way.
从这一角度出发，我们自然就能得出结论——智能手机和社交网络的本身并不是负面的。作者指出：“手机技术本身并不会让人上瘾。”当我们与他人联络并了解他们时，我们那以社会为导向的大脑会开始分泌多巴胺，这种化学物质能让我们心情愉悦。这就是在最开始时把我们和手机“绑”在一起的东西。他们表示，事实上这些科技产品一开始对人类并无害。起初，它们为我们提供了一种变得更加社会化的方式，这一方式远比之前的其他方式都更为高效，也因此，它们成了一种能使我们心情变得更好的特效工具。
dopamine
/ˈdoʊ.pəˌmiːn/ n. a hormone (= chemical substance) that is made naturally in the body and may also be given as a drug多巴胺
Things got bad later, when Facebook–along with Apple, mobile game developers, and many other companies–implemented random reward systems in their user interfaces that
capitalize on
this natural need of ours to connect. Veissière and Stendel claim that these companies added elements to their user experience that were designed to pump up the addiction, leading to depression and social anxiety.
随后，情况开始变糟，脸书与苹果公司、手机游戏开发商以及很多其他公司一起在它们的用户界面中植入了随机奖励系统。这些公司从我们的与人交际这一本能需求中获利。维塞尔和斯腾德尔表示，正是由于这些公司在它们的用户体验中加入了使人上瘾的元素，才出现了抑郁和社交焦虑。
capitalize on sth
v. to use a situation to your own advantage利用…获益；从…中获利
In short, the tech industry used behavioral science to corrupt a technology that can be positive for human beings into something that turns them into “anti-social, self-obsessed zombies.”
简而言之， 借助于行为科学，科技行业将一个科技产品腐化，使其从最初的对人类有积极作用变为现今的把人类毒害成“反社会、以自我为中心的僵尸”。
Fortunately, the authors offer two simple and very logical remedies–and none of them involve throwing away your phone or cutting social networking completely. That would go against our own nature (and would just be silly). Instead, all of their advice is rooted in the Buddhist principle of feeding your “hungry ghosts,” a spirit that has an endless hunger for food. Instead of being a glutton and constantly feeding your hunger for social connection, just “eat” less.
幸运的是，两位作者为我们提供了两条简单而又十分合理的补救措施，我们不需要把自己的手机或社交网络完全摒弃——这些行为都与我们的天性相悖（并显得很傻气）。相反，他们的建议均源于佛教中满足你的“饿鬼”的准则。“饿鬼”是一种对食物有着无穷需求的恶魔。不要作一个不断用社交来填补饥饿感的嗜食者，你应该少“吃”一点。
Thus, the first step is to eliminate the reward system that turns you into a zombie: Disable all notifications. The bings, rings, and the red dots. Those are Facebook’s bells to your Pavlovian dog. If you enable notifications, you are giving these companies the ability to enslave your brain, triggering dopamine hits by associating those sounds and visual cues with random rewards. As an alternative, just check your phone two or three times during the day to see who liked your photos and commented on your posts, or what your friends are doing.
因此，第一步，删除能把你变成僵尸的奖励机制，关闭所有的消息提醒——叮咚声以及小红点们。对于你的巴甫洛夫的狗来说，它们都是脸书的铃铛。打开消息提醒意味着你给了这些公司奴役你大脑的能力；通过把这些声音和视觉信号与随机奖励机制相连，你的多巴胺分泌机制将被触发。作为一个备择选项，你可以把每天查看谁给你的照片点赞、谁评论了你的文章或者你的朋友们在干什么的次数限制在两到三次之间。
译著：在巴甫洛夫的“条件反射”实验中，试验者让狗听到铃声之后，就会给它食物，长此以往，狗在听到铃声之后会本能地会联想起食物，并流口水。
Their second recommendation: Don’t measure yourself against the “highlight reel” of other’s people lives. You shouldn’t take people’s lives on Facebook seriously because they are
slanted
to the positive side. Instead, try to remind yourself that everyone’s life is full of crap, just like yours. Just observe, learn, and, whenever possible, celebrate.
他们的第二个建议：不要以他人生活中的“精彩瞬间”作为衡量你自己生活的标准。不要把别人在脸书上展示的生活太当真，这些都是经过选择后光鲜亮丽的一面。提醒你自己，其他人的生活和你自己的一样混乱不堪。面对他人的生活，仅仅去观察、去学习、并适时地去祝贺。
slant
/slænt/ v. to present information in a particular way, especially showing one group of people, one side of an argument, etc. in such a positive or negative way that it is unfair有倾向性地陈述；有偏向地报道
Veissière and Stendel believe that companies can also help curb addiction by prohibiting all work email, messaging, and any kind of business interaction after hours. This is something that France has already banned by law. In the United States, most don’t. So it’s up to you to implement that policy using your own behavior.
维塞尔和斯腾德尔认为，通过禁止在下班后发与工作有关的邮件、信息以及进行任何形式上的工作交流，公司们也能帮助人们扼制上瘾。法国已经颁布法律来禁止这些事情了。但在美国，大多数的公司并没有这样做，因此，是否践行这项措施取决于你自己。
