The effects of the internet
网络对大脑的影响
Fast forward
快速前进
Fear of a fried future
只怕未来太焦急
Jun 24th 2010
Fried brains is a delicacy in France
煎脑汉堡是法国一道美餐
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.By Nicholas Carr. Norton; 276 pages; $26.95. Published in Britain by Atlantic in September as "The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember"; £17.99.Buy from Amazon.com
《空洞：网络给大脑带来的》 尼古拉斯・卡尔著 美国 诺顿出版社 276页 26.95美元； （ 英国 大西洋出版社 《空洞：网络改变了人们思考、阅读和记忆的方式》，17.99英镑。）
IN 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, a Benedictine abbot named Trithemius, living in western Germany, wrote a spirited defence of scribes who tried to impress God's word most firmly on their minds by copying out texts by hand. To disseminate his own books, though, Trithemius used the revolutionary technology of the day, the printing press. Nicholas Carr, an American commentator on the digital revolution, faces a similar dichotomy. A blogger and card-carrying member of the "digerati", he is worried enough about the internet to raise the alarm about its dangers to human thought and creativity.
1492年，就在克里斯托佛・哥伦布穿过大西洋的同一天，西德一位名叫特里特米乌斯的本笃会修道士写了一本书，英勇地称赞了为记忆上帝教义而抄写经书的人们，然而为了传播他自己的书籍，他使用了当时具有革命特性的技术――印刷机。如今这位美国人尼古拉斯・卡尔对于数字革命的评论，有着与特里特米乌斯一样的矛盾。作为一名博客写手，一名正式的"数字文人"，他却非常担心网络对人类思想和创造力的伤害。
The recent uproar over privacy on Facebook is only the latest backlash against man's newly wired existence. Mr Carr did his bit to encourage the anxiety in 2008 with an essay in the Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" His new book is an expanded survey of the science and history of human cognition. Worry of this kind is not new: a decade ago, the first evidence suggested that PowerPoint changed not just how executives presented information, but also how they thought. Mr Carr's contribution is to offer the most readable overview of the science to date. It is clearly not intended as a jeremiad. Yet halfway through, he can't quite help but blurt out that the impact of this browsing on our brains is "even more disturbing" than he thought.
最近对于Facebook网站个人隐私的激烈论争，只是人类开始网络之路之来最近的一场反思。2008年，卡尔在《大西洋》杂志上发表了题为《谷歌是否让我们变笨》的文章，引起网民的忧虑。而他的新作是对于人类认知科学和历史的深度调查。这类但心并不新鲜，十年前，就是最初证据表明幻灯片的使用不仅改变了主管人员展示信息的方式，更改变了他们的思考方式。卡尔本书提供了最具可读性的当今科学概观。很明显他本意并不想这样悲观，可是写着写着，他难以控制，冲口说道，浏览网络对于大脑的影响甚至比他所料想的还要麻烦。
Humans like to believe they control the tools they use, even if Socrates, Marshall McLuhan and Ivan Illich are among those who have argued that often they do not. From the alphabet to clocks and printing, every major new technology has profoundly altered the way in which humans think. The digital gadgets on which we now depend, Mr Carr explains, have already begun rewiring our brains.
人类乐于相信他们能控制所用的工具，就算像苏格拉底、马歇尔・麦克卢汉和伊凡・伊里奇这些清醒的智者在不停地争论他们经常不能控制所用的工具。从字母表，到钟表和印刷，每一项新的技术都深刻地改变了人类思考的方式。卡尔解释说，如今我们所依赖的数字玩意儿已经开始重组人类的大脑了。
Neurological research has demolished the myth of the static brain. Neural networks can be rapidly reorganised in response to new experiences such as going on the web. Mr Carr surveys current knowledge about the effects on thinking of "hypermedia"―in particular clicking, skipping, skimming―and especially on working and deep memory. He draws some chilling inferences. There is evidence, he says, that digital technology is already damaging the long-term memory consolidation that is the basis for true intelligence.
脑神经学的研究早已打破了静态脑的神话，神经网络对于上网等新体验能迅速重组作出反应，卡尔深度调查了最新的知识，总结关于超媒体(点击、浏览以及选择）对于思考力的影响，尤其是对于工作和深度记忆的影响。他得到了一些不好的推论，比如，有证据表明数字科技已经在损坏人类长期记忆巩固功能，而长期记忆的巩固正是智慧的基础。
Only by combining data stored deep within our brains can we forge new ideas. No amount of magpie assemblage can compensate for this slow, synthetic creativity. Hyperlinks and overstimulation mean the brain must give most of its attention to short-term decisions. Little makes it through the fragile transfer into deeper processing. Clearly, argues Mr Carr, this is a radical upending of the "literate mind" that has been the hallmark of civilisation for more than 1,000 years. From a society that valued the creation of a unique storehouse of ideas in each individual, man is moving to a socially constructed mind that values speed and group approval over originality and creativity.
人类创新的基础是储存在大脑深处的信息想碰撞融合的结果，如果不是人脑中的反应，不管有多么巨量的信息汇合在一处都不能成就这缓慢、综合的创新。超链接和过度刺激导致大脑必须空出大量的注意力来做出短期决定。只有非常少的信息能够进入大脑深处。卡尔写道，这样很明显颠覆了对上千年来被视为文明标志的"有文化的头脑"。人类社会正从一个重视个体创造力组成的独特社会，变成了重视速度和群体认同而忽视创意和新事物的社会头脑。
True, there are compensations: better hand-eye co-ordination, pattern recognition and the very multitasking skills the machines themselves require. Sceptics will rightly point out that similar concerns have accompanied each new technology. Something is always lost, and something gained. Some evolutionary biologists claim that the scholarly mind is an historical anomaly: that humans, like other primates, are designed to scan rapidly for danger and opportunity. If so, the net delivers this shallow, scattered mindset with a vengeance.
当然网络也带来了一点乐观的东西，比如更好的手眼协调能力、更好模式识别能力，以及更好的电脑所需要的一心多用能力。怀疑本书作者的人也自然会争论道，这一类担心与任何新技术相伴而来，新事物都是有利有弊的。有些进化生物学家声称学究气的头脑是历史变异产生的，人类和其它灵长类动物天生具有快速浏览确定危机与机遇的能力。如果真是这样的话，网络却在报复这肤浅、分散的头脑。
Mr Carr offers few prescriptions. The author himself retreated to an (unplugged) mountain hideout to write his book, but he thinks most people depend too much on the net for work and fun to do the same. And he fails to address the ways in which the internet acts like a drug. Other critics have probed this issue more deeply, notably Jaron Lanier, a virtual-reality pioneer, in a recent book, "You Are Not a Gadget". Yet surely online bingeing is no different from eating too many sweets: its remedy is a matter of old-fashioned self-restraint.
作者对于避害之术提得不多，虽然他本人是撤到不能上网的深山里写的本书，可是他也承认大多数人都太依赖网络来辅佐工作，来娱乐，要他们到不能上网的深山去恐怕不行。他也没将网络与毒品进行比较。有些人对这一议题研究得更深，比如虚拟世界的倡导者杰伦・拉尼尔的新书《你不是机器》。当然上网太长时间和吃太多糖一样，要治疗也许只有传统的"自觉控制"。
网络对大脑的影响
Fast forward
快速前进
Fear of a fried future
只怕未来太焦急
Jun 24th 2010
Fried brains is a delicacy in France
煎脑汉堡是法国一道美餐
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.By Nicholas Carr. Norton; 276 pages; $26.95. Published in Britain by Atlantic in September as "The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember"; £17.99.Buy from Amazon.com
《空洞：网络给大脑带来的》 尼古拉斯・卡尔著 美国 诺顿出版社 276页 26.95美元； （ 英国 大西洋出版社 《空洞：网络改变了人们思考、阅读和记忆的方式》，17.99英镑。）
IN 1492, the same year that Christopher Columbus crossed the Atlantic, a Benedictine abbot named Trithemius, living in western Germany, wrote a spirited defence of scribes who tried to impress God's word most firmly on their minds by copying out texts by hand. To disseminate his own books, though, Trithemius used the revolutionary technology of the day, the printing press. Nicholas Carr, an American commentator on the digital revolution, faces a similar dichotomy. A blogger and card-carrying member of the "digerati", he is worried enough about the internet to raise the alarm about its dangers to human thought and creativity.
1492年，就在克里斯托佛・哥伦布穿过大西洋的同一天，西德一位名叫特里特米乌斯的本笃会修道士写了一本书，英勇地称赞了为记忆上帝教义而抄写经书的人们，然而为了传播他自己的书籍，他使用了当时具有革命特性的技术――印刷机。如今这位美国人尼古拉斯・卡尔对于数字革命的评论，有着与特里特米乌斯一样的矛盾。作为一名博客写手，一名正式的"数字文人"，他却非常担心网络对人类思想和创造力的伤害。
The recent uproar over privacy on Facebook is only the latest backlash against man's newly wired existence. Mr Carr did his bit to encourage the anxiety in 2008 with an essay in the Atlantic entitled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" His new book is an expanded survey of the science and history of human cognition. Worry of this kind is not new: a decade ago, the first evidence suggested that PowerPoint changed not just how executives presented information, but also how they thought. Mr Carr's contribution is to offer the most readable overview of the science to date. It is clearly not intended as a jeremiad. Yet halfway through, he can't quite help but blurt out that the impact of this browsing on our brains is "even more disturbing" than he thought.
最近对于Facebook网站个人隐私的激烈论争，只是人类开始网络之路之来最近的一场反思。2008年，卡尔在《大西洋》杂志上发表了题为《谷歌是否让我们变笨》的文章，引起网民的忧虑。而他的新作是对于人类认知科学和历史的深度调查。这类但心并不新鲜，十年前，就是最初证据表明幻灯片的使用不仅改变了主管人员展示信息的方式，更改变了他们的思考方式。卡尔本书提供了最具可读性的当今科学概观。很明显他本意并不想这样悲观，可是写着写着，他难以控制，冲口说道，浏览网络对于大脑的影响甚至比他所料想的还要麻烦。
Humans like to believe they control the tools they use, even if Socrates, Marshall McLuhan and Ivan Illich are among those who have argued that often they do not. From the alphabet to clocks and printing, every major new technology has profoundly altered the way in which humans think. The digital gadgets on which we now depend, Mr Carr explains, have already begun rewiring our brains.
人类乐于相信他们能控制所用的工具，就算像苏格拉底、马歇尔・麦克卢汉和伊凡・伊里奇这些清醒的智者在不停地争论他们经常不能控制所用的工具。从字母表，到钟表和印刷，每一项新的技术都深刻地改变了人类思考的方式。卡尔解释说，如今我们所依赖的数字玩意儿已经开始重组人类的大脑了。
Neurological research has demolished the myth of the static brain. Neural networks can be rapidly reorganised in response to new experiences such as going on the web. Mr Carr surveys current knowledge about the effects on thinking of "hypermedia"―in particular clicking, skipping, skimming―and especially on working and deep memory. He draws some chilling inferences. There is evidence, he says, that digital technology is already damaging the long-term memory consolidation that is the basis for true intelligence.
脑神经学的研究早已打破了静态脑的神话，神经网络对于上网等新体验能迅速重组作出反应，卡尔深度调查了最新的知识，总结关于超媒体(点击、浏览以及选择）对于思考力的影响，尤其是对于工作和深度记忆的影响。他得到了一些不好的推论，比如，有证据表明数字科技已经在损坏人类长期记忆巩固功能，而长期记忆的巩固正是智慧的基础。
Only by combining data stored deep within our brains can we forge new ideas. No amount of magpie assemblage can compensate for this slow, synthetic creativity. Hyperlinks and overstimulation mean the brain must give most of its attention to short-term decisions. Little makes it through the fragile transfer into deeper processing. Clearly, argues Mr Carr, this is a radical upending of the "literate mind" that has been the hallmark of civilisation for more than 1,000 years. From a society that valued the creation of a unique storehouse of ideas in each individual, man is moving to a socially constructed mind that values speed and group approval over originality and creativity.
人类创新的基础是储存在大脑深处的信息想碰撞融合的结果，如果不是人脑中的反应，不管有多么巨量的信息汇合在一处都不能成就这缓慢、综合的创新。超链接和过度刺激导致大脑必须空出大量的注意力来做出短期决定。只有非常少的信息能够进入大脑深处。卡尔写道，这样很明显颠覆了对上千年来被视为文明标志的"有文化的头脑"。人类社会正从一个重视个体创造力组成的独特社会，变成了重视速度和群体认同而忽视创意和新事物的社会头脑。
True, there are compensations: better hand-eye co-ordination, pattern recognition and the very multitasking skills the machines themselves require. Sceptics will rightly point out that similar concerns have accompanied each new technology. Something is always lost, and something gained. Some evolutionary biologists claim that the scholarly mind is an historical anomaly: that humans, like other primates, are designed to scan rapidly for danger and opportunity. If so, the net delivers this shallow, scattered mindset with a vengeance.
当然网络也带来了一点乐观的东西，比如更好的手眼协调能力、更好模式识别能力，以及更好的电脑所需要的一心多用能力。怀疑本书作者的人也自然会争论道，这一类担心与任何新技术相伴而来，新事物都是有利有弊的。有些进化生物学家声称学究气的头脑是历史变异产生的，人类和其它灵长类动物天生具有快速浏览确定危机与机遇的能力。如果真是这样的话，网络却在报复这肤浅、分散的头脑。
Mr Carr offers few prescriptions. The author himself retreated to an (unplugged) mountain hideout to write his book, but he thinks most people depend too much on the net for work and fun to do the same. And he fails to address the ways in which the internet acts like a drug. Other critics have probed this issue more deeply, notably Jaron Lanier, a virtual-reality pioneer, in a recent book, "You Are Not a Gadget". Yet surely online bingeing is no different from eating too many sweets: its remedy is a matter of old-fashioned self-restraint.
作者对于避害之术提得不多，虽然他本人是撤到不能上网的深山里写的本书，可是他也承认大多数人都太依赖网络来辅佐工作，来娱乐，要他们到不能上网的深山去恐怕不行。他也没将网络与毒品进行比较。有些人对这一议题研究得更深，比如虚拟世界的倡导者杰伦・拉尼尔的新书《你不是机器》。当然上网太长时间和吃太多糖一样，要治疗也许只有传统的"自觉控制"。
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