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One of the questions that we're all asking now is what effect are the new technologies, the Internet, computers, cell phones, screens going to have on the next generation of children
现在我们经常会提出的问题之一是新科技 互联网 电脑 手机 屏幕会给我们下一代的孩子们带来什么样的影响
The answer is we won't know for another 20 years until those children grow up.
直到二十年后这些孩子都长大了 我们才能知道答案
But I think we can make some guesses based on our past human history.
但我觉得我们可以根据过往的人类历史做一些猜想
One of the things about human beings is that we've been technological beings from the very beginning.
关于人类我们知道的一件事情是 我们人类起初到现在一直是技术型的生物
In fact, in a way that's the thing that's most distinctive about us, we use tools.
实际上 在某方面 那是我们最独特的地方 那就是我们使用工具
We modify and change our environments.
我们能够改造和改善我们的环境
We create new ways of being in the world, both physically and socially.
从物理和社会的角度来说我们都创造了世界上新的生活方式
And that's what we've always done and we've always changed.
这是我们一直在进行和改变的事
We've always had culture, which enabled us to take the inventions of one generation and then modify or change them to suit another generation.
我们一直以来的传统是我们能够利用一代人的发明然后改造它们 使之适合另一代人的需求
So the fact that we have technology and the fact that that technology changes and it changes across generations, none of that's new.
所以我们拥有技术的事实以及这些技术日新月异的事实并不新奇
But curiously part of the effect of that cultural change is it always seems as if the technology that we grew up with is eternal,
但是神奇的是 这种文化性改变的影响的一部分在于 随我们长大的技术似乎是永恒的
it's just part of nature; it has always been there.
它就是世界的一部分 一直在那里
And the technology that our children come up with is part of a dystopian Mad Max future apocalypse.
而我们孩子这一代发明的技术则是反乌托邦的疯狂麦克斯未来启示录的一部分
And that's also been true for as long as we've been around as human beings.
而且只要我们作为人类存在一天这个事实就存在一天
So, many of the technologies that you could argue really did have transformative effects on us are things like the printing press, the telegraph, the train.
真正能称得上对我们生活有变革性影响的技术是类似于于印刷机 电报和火车这样的技术
We don't think about a telegraph as being an amazingly disruptive new technology,
我们不把电报看成是拥有惊人破坏力的新技术
but when telegraphs and trains were introduced there were just as many editorials in the paper saying these are awful ideas.
但是当电报和火车普及的时候 很多报纸社论都说它们是可怕的主意
They're going to reshape our lives in ways that are going to be completely destructive of human happiness.
他们会以一种对人类幸福具有完全破坏性的方式来重塑我们的生活
Now in some ways that's right.
从某种程度来说这是对的
I mean the printing press really did completely change the way that we related to the world and related to each other.
我是说 印刷机确实彻底改变了我们和世界我们和他人的联系方式
The telegraph meant that we went from communicating at the speed of a fast horse to communicating at the speed of light.
电报意味着我们沟通的速度从快马的速度提升到了光速
That made an enormous change in the way that we functioned and related to one another.
这极大地改变了我们互相影响和联系的方式
And I think it's quite plausible that things like the Internet are also going to make a change in the way that we think, the way we relate to one another.
而且我觉得合理的是互联网这一类的事物也会改变我们思考的方式 以及我们与他人联系的方式
But the assumption that somehow this time it's different, this is going to be the change
但是说这一次改变有些不同 这次改变将会
that's going to destroy our brains or destroy our minds it doesn't really fit our history
破坏我们的大脑和思维的假定 并不符合我们的历史
and it doesn't fit what we know from neuroscience and psychology about the way that childhood is this kind of cauldron of innovation.
也不符合我们神经系统科学和心理学中已知的童年是一段包含了一系列创新行为的时期这一事实
So one of the reasons why we have this effect, this kind of ratchet,
因此我们之所以出现这种现象 感觉到
this sense that the technological change in our generation is totally different than any of the others is
我们这一代的技术变革和其他任何一代都完全不同的原因之一是
that there's a big difference between the way we learn with an adult brain and the way we learn with a child's brain.
成人大脑和孩子大脑在学习这项技术的时候存在很大的差异
So for adults when they learn a new skill it demands tremendous amounts of attention and energy and working memory.
所以对于成人来说 当他们学习一项新技术时 他们需要付出大量的注意力 精力和记忆力
We have to put a lot of work into learning how to do something new.
学习新东西我们需要付出很大的努力
So when I have to figure out how to use my cell phone, for example, it feels effortful.
例如当我学习如何使用手机的时候 我感觉很吃力
I mean it is effortful and distracting.
我的意思是 这很花功夫 并且很容易注意力不集中
That's very differrant though from what happens with the skills
那真的变得很难 不同于
that we learn when we're in the first couple of years of life, things like learning to speak or even learning to read.
我们儿童时代学习的那些技能时的难度 例如学习说话 甚至是学习阅读
When I walk through a crowded street full of billboards I don't feel
当我走过一条挂满广告牌的街道时 我不会觉得
as if I'm constantly being distracted because I have to decode what all those letters on all those billboards mean.
因为要理解所有广告牌上的字而被持续地分散注意力
And that's because I learned to do that at such a young age that it literally just takes place automatically without higher level control.
那是因为那时我的年纪太小了 学习这些东西完全处于自动学习状态 而不是在大脑更高级别的控制下告诉我应该去学习才去做的
And it seems plausible that that for a new generation children
而且有可能对于新一代的儿童来说 他们从小就
who are interacting with devices from the time their babies with touch and voice
通过触控和声音与设备互动这种互动之于他们
that kind of interaction will be as natural and spontaneous for them as reading is for me.
就像阅读之于我们一样自然
Now they'll be different. It won't be the same as reading because interacting with a screen is different from reading.
这会变得不同它和阅读不一样 因为和屏幕互动不同于阅读
But I don't see any particular reason to believe that that's going to be that terrible evil technology as opposed to all the other technologies.
但是没有什么特别的理由让我相信这将会是邪恶可怕的技术而不是所有其他的技术
Socrates famously said that reading was a terrible idea.
苏格拉底有句名言 阅读是个糟糕的主意
Books were not a good idea because first of all they would destroy our ability to do things
书籍不是个好主意因为首先 书会破坏我们某些能力
like memorize all the words of Homer, and secondly if you had a book you would think
比如记住荷马的一切话其次 如果有一本书 你就会思考
that what was written in the book was true instead of engaging in a Socratic dialogue with the information in the book.
书上写的哪些东西是真的而不是和书中的内容进行一场苏格拉底式的对话
And Socrates was right about both of those things.
在这两点上 苏格拉底是对的
No one nowadays has a memory that's good enough to memorize Homer,
今天没有人记忆力好到能记住荷马所说过的全部
and we do tend to think that things in books are true and we can't interrogated them the same way we could in conversation.
我们倾向于认为书里都是真的而不会像和人对话一样探询它们
But overall by and large the benefits outweighed the harms and I think that's going to be true for the new technology that we're grappling with now.
但总的来说利大于弊 这对于我们现在应对的新技术来说也是这样
