Why our screens make us less happy | Adam Alter

翻译人员: Yizhang Xu 校对人员: Steven Bao

So, a few years ago I heard an interesting rumor.

几年前，我听到一个有趣的传言。

Apparently, the head of a large pet food company

据说，一家大型宠物食品企业的负责人

would go into the annual shareholder's meeting

会参加年度的股东大会，

with can of dog food.

并带着一罐狗粮。

And he would eat the can of dog food.

他会吃这罐狗粮。

And this was his way of convincing them that if it was good enough for him,

这证明那些食品对他而言足够好，

自然也对宠物足够好。

it was good enough for their pets.

This strategy is now known as "dogfooding,"

这个策略现在被称作“吃狗粮”，

and it's a common strategy in the business world.

这是商业中常见的策略。

It doesn't mean everyone goes in and eats dog food,

这个策略并不是指每个人都去吃狗的食物，

but businesspeople will use their own products

而是商人会用他们自己的产品

to demonstrate that they feel --

来证实他们的感觉——

that they're confident in them.

他们对自己的产品很自信。

Now, this is a widespread practice,

现在这已是一个普通的做法，

but I think what's really interesting is when you find exceptions

但我认为真正有趣的是你会发现

这个规则的例外——

to this rule,

当你发现在许多商业案例中，

when you find cases of businesses or people in businesses

企业不使用自己的产品。

who don't use their own products.

事实证明，这种情况在一个行业中

Turns out there's one industry where this happens in a common way,

in a pretty regular way,

经常发生，

and that is the screen-based tech industry.

这个行业就是基于屏幕的技术行业。

So, in 2010, Steve Jobs, when he was releasing the iPad,

在2010年，当史蒂夫·乔布斯发布 iPad 时，

described the iPad as a device that was "extraordinary."

他将 iPad 描述为一个“非凡”的设备。

"The best browsing experience you've ever had;

“你将得到从未有过的浏览体验；

way better than a laptop, way better than a smartphone.

比笔记本电脑好得多，比智能手机好得多。

It's an incredible experience."

那是一种难以置信的体验。”

数月后，《纽约时报》的记者

A couple of months later, he was approached by a journalist

from the New York Times,

与他联系，

他们通了一次很长的电话。

and they had a long phone call.

At the end of the call,

在通话的最后，

the journalist threw in a question that seemed like a sort of softball.

记者提出了一个看似无关紧要的问题。

他对乔布斯说：“你的孩子一定很喜欢 iPad。”

He said to him, "Your kids must love the iPad."

There's an obvious answer to this,

这个问题有一个显然的答案，

but what Jobs said really staggered the journalist.

但乔布斯的回答使把记者吓了一跳。

He was very surprised,

记者十分惊讶，

because he said, "They haven't used it.

因为乔布斯回答：“他们还没用过 iPad 呢。

We limit how much technology our kids use at home."

在家中我们限制他们使用电子产品。”

This is a very common thing in the tech world.

这是一件在技术界非常常见的事。

In fact, there's a school quite near Silicon Valley

事实上，硅谷附近有一所学校

called the Waldorf School of the Peninsula,

叫做华道夫半岛学校，

and they don't introduce screens until the eighth grade.

这所学校在学生们升到八年级前不会使用屏幕。

What's really interesting about the school

真正有趣的是，

is that 75 percent of the kids who go there

这所学校75%的学生家长

have parents who are high-level Silicon Valley tech execs.

是硅谷的技术高管。

So when I heard about this, I thought it was interesting and surprising,

所以当我听到这件事时，我觉得很有趣而且很惊讶。

and it pushed me to consider what screens were doing to me

它促使我思考屏幕对我自己、

and to my family and the people I loved,

我的家庭、我爱的人，

and to people at large.

甚至对所有人做了什么。

So for the last five years,

所以最近五年，

as a professor of business and psychology,

作为一个商业和心理学教授，

I've been studying the effect of screens on our lives.

我一直在研究屏幕对我们生活的影响。

And I want to start by just focusing on how much time they take from us,

我希望从关注屏幕花去了我们多少时间开始，

and then we can talk about what that time looks like.

然后我们再来讨论这些时间是什么样的。

What I'm showing you here is the average 24-hour workday

我现在展示的是工作日的平均数据，

at three different points in history:

分别是在三个时间点：

2007 -- 10 years ago --

2007年，也就是10年前，

2015

2015年，

and then data that I collected, actually, only last week.

以及我上周刚刚收集的数据。

And a lot of things haven't changed

很多事情并没有

all that much.

发生太大的变化。

We sleep roughly seven-and-a-half to eight hours a day;

每天我们大约花 7 个半小时到 8 个小时睡觉；

some people say that's declined slightly, but it hasn't changed much.

有人说这个时间略微有下降，但变化不大。

We work eight-and-a-half to nine hours a day.

工作花费我们 8 个半小时到 9 个小时。

We engage in survival activities --

而生存活动——

these are things like eating and bathing and looking after kids --

例如吃饭、洗澡、照看孩子——

about three hours a day.

花费我们三个小时。

That leaves this white space.

这里留下了空白。

That's our personal time.

这些是我们的私人时间。

That space is incredibly important to us.

这段时间对我们至关重要。

That's the space where we do things that make us individuals.

因为它使我们成为与众不同的人。

That's where hobbies happen, where we have close relationships,

在这段时间里我们探索爱好、维持亲密的关系、

where we really think about our lives, where we get creative,

思考人生、获得灵感和创意、

where we zoom back and try to work out

回顾以及试图思考

whether our lives have been meaningful.

过去的生活是否有意义。

We get some of that from work as well,

当然我们在工作中也做过这些，

but when people look back on their lives

但当人们在生命

and wonder what their lives have been like

结束之前

at the end of their lives,

回顾他们的生活时，

you look at the last things they say --

你会发现许多事情他们始终仍念念不忘——

they are talking about those moments that happen in that white personal space.

他们在说那些发生在图中空白私人时间中的事。

所以，这些时间是神圣的；它对我们非常重要。

So it's sacred; it's important to us.

Now, what I'm going to do is show you

现在，我要向你们展示的是

这些空白中有多少时间被屏幕占据。

how much of that space is taken up by screens across time.

In 2007,

2007 年，

this much.

这么多。

That was the year that Apple introduced the first iPhone.

这是苹果发布第一台 iPhone 的年份。

Eight years later,

8 年后，

this much.

是这样的。

Now, this much.

到现在，这样。

That's how much time we spend of that free time in front of our screens.

这是我们在空闲时间里花费在屏幕上的时间。

This yellow area, this thin sliver, is where the magic happens.

这个黄色区域，这个细条，是最神奇的地方。

That's where your humanity lives.

你的人性存在于这段时间里。

And right now, it's in a very small box.

但现在，这个区域已经很小了。

So what do we do about this?

那我们该怎么做呢？

Well, the first question is:

第一个问题是：

What does that red space look like?

那个红色的区域是什么样的？

Now, of course, screens are miraculous

当然，屏幕从现在的很多方面看来

in a lot of ways.

都是一件不可思议的事。

I live in New York,

我在纽约生活，

a lot of my family lives in Australia,

我有许多家人在澳大利亚生活，

and I have a one-year-old son.

我还有一个一岁的儿子。

The way I've been able to introduce them to him is with screens.

我通过屏幕将我的家人介绍给我的儿子。

I couldn't have done that 15 or 20 years ago

但在 15 或 20 年前，

in quite the same way.

我完全无法这么做。

So there's a lot of good that comes from them.

不难看到，屏幕带给了我们许多好处。

One thing you can do is ask yourself:

一件你可以做的事情是问问你自己：

What goes on during that time?

在那段时间里发生了什么？

How enriching are the apps that we're using?

我们使用的应用很丰富吗？

And some are enriching.

有些很丰富。

If you stop people while they're using them and say,

如果你打断正在用手机的人并说：

"Tell us how you feel right now,"

“告诉我们，你现在的感觉如何？”

they say they feel pretty good about these apps --

他们会说感觉很好——

those that focus on relaxation, exercise, weather, reading,

当他们使用休闲、锻炼、天气、阅读、

education and health.

教育和健康的手机应用时。

They spend an average of nine minutes a day on each of these.

人们平均每天在这些应用上花费 9 分钟。

These apps make them much less happy.

而这些应用让人们更不开心。

About half the people, when you interrupt them and say, "How do you feel?"

大约一半的人，当你打断他们并问：“你感觉如何？”

say they don't feel good about using them.

他们回答感觉并不好。

What's interesting about these --

有意思的是，在这些应用上——

dating, social networking, gaming,

约会、社交、游戏、

entertainment, news, web browsing --

娱乐、新闻、浏览网页——

people spend 27 minutes a day on each of these.

人们每天花 27 分钟。

We're spending three times longer on the apps that don't make us happy.

我们在使我们不开心的应用上花费了三倍的时间。

That doesn't seem very wise.

这看起来并不明智。

One of the reasons we spend so much time on these apps

我们花很多时间在这些

that make us unhappy

使我们不高兴的应用上，原因之一

is they rob us of stopping cues.

是它们没有“停止信号”。

Stopping cues were everywhere in the 20th century.

在 20 世纪，“停止信号”曾经无处不在。

They were baked into everything we did.

它几乎存在于每件事里。

A stopping cue is basically a signal that it's time to move on,

“停止信号”提示我们是时候前进，

to do something new, to do something different.

去做些新的事情，做些不同的事情。

And -- think about newspapers; eventually you get to the end,

不妨想想报纸；最终你读到了结尾，

you fold the newspaper away, you put it aside.

于是你把报纸叠起来，放到一旁。

The same with magazines, books -- you get to the end of a chapter,

杂志和书与之相同——你读到了最后一章，

prompts you to consider whether you want to continue.

于是你考虑是否要继续。

You watched a show on TV, eventually the show would end,

你观看电视节目，最终节目结束，

and then you'd have a week until the next one came.

于是你要等待一周才能看到下一期。

There were stopping cues everywhere.

“停止信号”曾经在生活中的方方面面出现。

But the way we consume media today is such that there are no stopping cues.

但当今我们消费媒体的方式已不再有“停止信号”了。

The news feed just rolls on,

信息滚动出现，

and everything's bottomless: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,

一切都没有尽头： Twitter、Facebook、Instagram、

email, text messaging, the news.

电子邮件、短信、新闻。

And when you do check all sorts of other sources,

当你查看各种来源的信息时，

you can just keep going on and on and on.

你可以一直继续下去。

So, we can get a cue about what to do from Western Europe,

我们可以从西欧得到一点如何做的提示。

where they seem to have a number of pretty good ideas in the workplace.

他们似乎对于工作场所有很多好的想法。

Here's one example. This is a Dutch design firm.

这里有一个例子。这是一家荷兰设计公司。

And what they've done is rigged the desks to the ceiling.

他们将工作桌与天花板连在了一起。

And at 6pm every day,

每天晚上 6 点，

it doesn't matter who you're emailing or what you're doing,

无论你在写邮件或者做其他事情，

桌子会升到天花板上。

the desks rise to the ceiling.

(Laughter)

（笑声）

(Applause)

（掌声）

Four days a week, the space turns into a yoga studio,

每周有四天，这个空间变成瑜伽室；

one day a week, into a dance club.

另外一天则变成舞蹈俱乐部。

It's really up to you which ones you stick around for.

你喜欢哪个由你自己决定。

But this is a great stopping rule,

但这是一个非常棒的停止规则，

because it means at the end of the day,

因为它意味着这一天的结束，

everything stops, there's no way to work.

一切停止，不能再工作。

At Daimler, the German car company, they've got another great strategy.

德国汽车公司戴姆勒有另一个好方法。

When you go on vacation,

当员工前去度假的时候，

instead of saying, "This person's on vacation,

他们不会说：“这个人去度假了，

they'll get back to you eventually,"

但他会回来的。”

他们会说：“这个人在度假呢， 所以我们会删除你发给他的邮件。

they say, "This person's on vacation, so we've deleted your email.

This person will never see the email you just sent."

他将永远看不到你刚才发的邮件。”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

"You can email back in a couple of weeks,

“你可以在几周后再发，

or you can email someone else."

或者干脆给其他人写邮件。”

(Laughter)

（笑声）

And so --

所以——

(Applause)

（掌声）

You can imagine what that's like.

你可以想象那个样子。

You go on vacation, and you're actually on vacation.

你在度假，你真的在度假。

The people who work at this company feel

这个公司的员工感觉

that they actually get a break from work.

他们真正获得了休息。

But of course, that doesn't tell us much

当然，这并没有告诉我们

about what we should do at home in our own lives,

在日常生活中应当怎么做，

所以我想给一点建议。

so I want to make some suggestions.

It's easy to say, between 5 and 6pm, I'm going to not use my phone.

我可以很轻松的说：在晚上 5 点到 6 点之间， 我不会使用手机。

The problem is, 5 and 6pm looks different on different days.

但问题在于，5 点到 6 点的安排在每天是不同的。

I think a far better strategy is to say,

因而我想到了一个更好的方法：

I do certain things every day,

我每天都会做某些特定的事情，

there are certain occasions that happen every day,

有些情况每天都会发生，

like eating dinner.

比如说晚餐。

Sometimes I'll be alone,

有时我会独自一人吃晚餐，

sometimes with other people,

有时候和其他人一起，

sometimes in a restaurant,

有的时候在餐厅，

sometimes at home,

有的时候在家。

but the rule that I've adopted is: I will never use my phone at the table.

但我的规则是：绝对不在餐桌上使用手机。

It's far away,

这很难，

as far away as possible.

能做到的可能性不大。

Because we're really bad at resisting temptation.

因为我们真的很难抵制诱惑。

But when you have a stopping cue that, every time dinner begins,

但当你有这个“停止信号”，每到晚餐时，

手机就会离你很远，

my phone goes far away,

于是你就远离了诱惑。

you avoid temptation all together.

At first, it hurts.

起先，我很难受。

I had massive FOMO.

我有了严重的错失恐惧。

(Laughter)

（笑声）

I struggled.

我艰难地忍受着。

But what happens is, you get used to it.

但接下来发生的事情是，你已经习惯了。

You overcome the withdrawal the same way you would from a drug,

你度过了这段艰难的过程，就像成功戒毒一样，

and what happens is, life becomes more colorful, richer,

接着迎接你的，是更加多彩、丰富、

more interesting --

有趣的生活——

you have better conversations.

你与他人有了更好的交流。

You really connect with the people who are there with you.

你与身旁的人真正联系在了一起。

I think it's a fantastic strategy,

我认为这是一个非常棒的方法，

and we know it works, because when people do this --

而且我们知道它有效，因为当人们这样做的时候——

and I've tracked a lot of people who have tried this --

我已经发现许多人尝试了这种方式——

it expands.

它已经传播开了。

They feel so good about it,

他们觉得这是个好方法，

他们从早上的第一个小时就开始做了。

they start doing it for the first hour of the day in the morning.

They start putting their phones on airplane mode on the weekend.

他们开始在周末将手机调为飞行模式。

That way, your phone remains a camera, but it's no longer a phone.

那样的话，你的手机成了一个相机，不再是手机了。

It's a really powerful idea,

这是一个强有力的想法，

and we know people feel much better about their lives when they do this.

同时我们知道人们在做这些的时候， 感觉到生活更加美好。

So what's the take home here?

所以重点是什么？

Screens are miraculous; I've already said that,

屏幕无比神奇；我已经说过了，

and I feel that it's true.

而且我认为这千真万确。

But the way we use them is a lot like driving down a really fast, long road,

但我们使用屏幕的方式却像是开过一条长长的路，

and you're in a car where the accelerator is mashed to the floor,

你坐在车里，将油门踩到底，

it's kind of hard to reach the brake pedal.

你踩不到刹车。

You've got a choice.

其实你可以选择。

You can either glide by, past, say, the beautiful ocean scenes

你可以开过旁边美丽的海景，

and take snaps out the window -- that's the easy thing to do --

对窗外拍几张照片——这很容易做到——

or you can go out of your way to move the car to the side of the road,

或者你可以离开这条路，将车开到路边，

to push that brake pedal,

踩下刹车，

to get out,

走出车去，

take off your shoes and socks,

脱下鞋和袜子，

take a couple of steps onto the sand,

在沙滩上走几步，

feel what the sand feels like under your feet,

体会沙子在你脚下的感觉，

walk to the ocean,

走向大海，

and let the ocean lap at your ankles.

让海水抚摸你的脚踝。

Your life will be richer and more meaningful

你的生活会更加充实、更加有意义，

because you breathe in that experience,

因为你在那种美妙的环境里尽情呼吸，

and because you've left your phone in the car.

因为你把手机留在了车上。

Thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（掌声）