谷歌愚化論？

Let’s face it. 我們擁有許多讓生活更加便利的高科技產(chǎn)品，其中最強(qiáng)大的莫過于電腦和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)

了—以前，誰會(huì)想到只要輕松一點(diǎn)就能和世界溝通，知道N千萬個(gè)為什么？然而，我們開始忘記字怎么寫，文章總是文法不通；我們也不再捧起書本閱讀，不再問問題，取而代之的是看電子書、上網(wǎng)“百度”或“Google”各種疑難—我們似乎不能靜下來思考了……我們好像比以前笨多了……美國學(xué)者尼古拉斯·卡爾最近發(fā)表了《谷歌愚化論？》一文，一起跟著他思考一下網(wǎng)絡(luò)的利與弊吧。

聽力小提示：文章為現(xiàn)場(chǎng)采訪，被訪者語句停頓較多，為方便閱讀，內(nèi)文已將多余停頓省略；并且被訪者的部分語句表述不完整，建議用作聽力練習(xí)，不建議精讀。

“Right this way， son，” says a P.T. Barnum-esque注1 man， who greets you at the door. “Right here in this corner I am 1)débuting the librarian of the future， Marion 2000. Go ahead and ask her

anything. Any book， any document， any article， she’ll get it for ya注2.”

So now， back to the present.

Host: So now， here’s the question. Do you mean to tell me that Marion 2000 is a bad thing? Well， Nicholas Carr seems to be saying just that， because the super-librarian does exist， only she’s not called Marion， she’s

called Google， and in the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine， Nicholas Carr asks this question: is Google making us stupid?

Hello， Nicholas. I’m glad you’re here rather than just having me 2)reference you and then not be here to defend yourself. So what do you mean? What do you mean “is Google making us stupid”? How could it be making us stupid?

Carr: Well， on the one hand， as you pointed out， Google and the Internet allow us to get all sorts of information very， very quickly. At the same time， I sense that they’re 3)imposing on us – and I…and I sense this from my own experience – a new way of thinking that’s very much 4)molded to the way we gather information online， which is to jump around very， very quickly， scan a lot of things， and not spend， really， any time concentrating in-depth on one subject or 5)contemplating one subject the way we used to do when we would， for instance， read books. So it’s…I sense imposing on us a kind of new way of thinking， and we gain a lot， but we may be losing something as well.

Host: Right， but， I guess， to grab us with a headline， it’s not “is Google imposing a new line of thinking，” It’s “making us stupid.” So it seems to be emphasizing the negatives there. Now， do you mean Google or the whole internet? Are you really do talk about Google.

Carr: Well， I mean the whole Internet， but Google plays such an important role today， and really is， when it comes to the way we find information and 6)traverse the Net， is really the 7)dominant player out there. And so I use Google as an example and as kind of a symbol of this new， what I call “intellectual 8)ethic” that is emerging and kind of governing the Net as a[n] information resource.

Host: How’s it different from the really well talked-about 9)notion of just shorter…shortening 10)attention spans?

Carr: I think that’s part of it， but， really， the way we gather information itself is by jumping around. And that is something that’s promoted not only by the tools， the technological tools of the Net， but by the economic and commercial interests of Google and other companies， who want us to jump around as much as possible and see as many pages and see as many advertisements. And what happens is – and I think this is true of new media or new intellectual technologies throughout history – is it begins to shape the way we think and it makes it harder when we’re offline even to， for instance， concentrate on long pieces of 11)prose. It was my own experience in having difficulty with reading books， something that used to come very natural to me， that really was the 12)spur to write the article.

Host: But someone 30 years ago， if they were doing a research paper on Genghis Kahn and the Golden

Horde注3， wouldn’t they 13)skim the information that was returned? There‘d probably have be[en] a more 14)primitive search engine. It might be the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature or card catalogues. But you’re telling me back then they’d be reading the whole book? They’d just be reading long， long articles at a time? They’d be using it and trying to use the functionality，

like， it’s just that Google’s gotten more functional， no?

Carr: It’s as our brains adapt to this method of gathering information， and as a method of gathering information， I admit it’s extremely useful， and that’s why I use it so much – but as our brains adapt to this， and again， this is something that happens when there are new media that we become 15)reliant on， our brains begin to work along the terms of that medium. You know， skimming begins to take over and displace any other mode of taking in information.

Reading， for instance， is not a genetic 16)trait built into the human brain. It’s something we have to learn. We have to literally kind of program the 17)neural circuits in our minds when we’re children and throughout our lives to do that…to accomplish that task. And any kind of information medium， any media that we use to gather information to read or whatever， our brains are very adaptable and very 18)malleable and the circuits will adapt to that new medium. And， for instance， you know， one thing I talk about in the article is that 19)neurological studies show that people who use 20)ideograms for reading， like the Chinese， have very different neural patterns inside their brain than people who use the alphabet to read. And in a similar way we can assume that reading information， taking in information online is gonna reshape literally those neural circuits from the way they were laid out when we take in information from the printed page， for instance. So， yeah， I mean， at a biological level， I think it will change and is changing our brains.

“這邊請(qǐng)，孩子，”一位個(gè)馬戲團(tuán)老板似的人在大門歡迎你?！熬驮谶@個(gè)角落，我為大家隆重介紹未來的圖書管理員——瑪麗安2000。盡管問她任何問題——任何書籍、文件或者文章，她都會(huì)為你找到。”

現(xiàn)在，讓我們回到現(xiàn)實(shí)。

主持：現(xiàn)在，問題是這樣的——你想跟我說瑪麗安2000不好嗎？尼古拉斯·卡爾似乎就是這么認(rèn)為的。因?yàn)檫@樣一個(gè)超級(jí)圖書管理員確實(shí)存在，只是她不叫瑪麗安，她的名字叫“谷歌”。而就在最新一期的《大西洋月刊》上，尼古拉斯·卡爾提出了這么一個(gè)問題：谷歌使我們變笨了嗎？

尼古拉斯，你好。真高興你能來到這兒，而不只是讓我提及一下，不讓你為自己辯護(hù)。那么，你是什么意思呢？你為什么說“谷歌使我們變笨了”？它怎么會(huì)讓我們變笨呢？

卡爾：一方面，就像你所說的，谷歌和互聯(lián)網(wǎng)讓我們可以在極短的時(shí)間內(nèi)獲得各種各樣的信息。與此同時(shí)，我也從個(gè)人經(jīng)驗(yàn)中體會(huì)到，它們會(huì)將一種新的思維方式強(qiáng)加給我們——這種思維方式形成自我們?cè)诰€收集信息的方式，那就是快速地到處亂撞，在一大堆東西中尋找需要的信息，而不再花時(shí)間專注于某一課題的深度研究上，也不再像過去——例如看書的時(shí)候那樣思考問題。因此它是……我認(rèn)為它給我們強(qiáng)加了一種新的思維方式，雖然收獲良多，但是我們也許同樣失去了一些

東西。

主持：是的，但是，我猜能抓住我們眼球的標(biāo)題不是“谷歌給我們強(qiáng)加了新思維嗎”，而是“愚化了我們”。所以它似乎強(qiáng)調(diào)了其消極影響。你指的是谷歌還是整個(gè)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)呢？你真的只是在講谷歌嗎？

卡爾：我指的是整個(gè)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，然而如今谷歌扮演著如此重要的角色，事實(shí)也的確是這樣。當(dāng)我們提到搜索信息的方式和在網(wǎng)上沖浪時(shí)，它確實(shí)占據(jù)著主導(dǎo)地位。因此我以谷歌為例，作為我所說的“智力準(zhǔn)則”的代表，這種準(zhǔn)則正從互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上崛起，或多或少以信息源的身份統(tǒng)治著整個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)。

主持：這與我們常常談到的“縮短了我們的注意廣度”的說法有什么

不同？

卡爾：我認(rèn)為那是其中一部分影響，但是，說實(shí)話，我們收集信息的方式本來就是靠到處碰碰運(yùn)氣。而這一方式不僅由這種工具……互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的這種技術(shù)工具所倡導(dǎo)，也受到了谷歌和其他公司的經(jīng)濟(jì)和商業(yè)利益推動(dòng)。這些公司希望我們盡可能多地到處點(diǎn)擊、瀏覽網(wǎng)頁，從而看到盡可能多的廣告。而結(jié)果是——我想，歷史上所有新媒介或新智能技術(shù)的出現(xiàn)也是如此——那就是它會(huì)逐漸影響我們的思維方式，使我們一旦離開網(wǎng)絡(luò)，即便想專心閱讀一些長(zhǎng)篇文章之類的，也會(huì)覺得吃力多了。我自己便有這種閱讀困難的經(jīng)歷，而閱讀對(duì)于我來說曾經(jīng)是一件非常自然而然的事情，這正是我寫這篇文章的初衷。

主持：然而在30年前，如果人們要寫一份關(guān)于“成吉思汗和金帳汗軍”的研究論文，他們就不會(huì)快速瀏覽一下前人反饋回來的信息嗎？也許以前就有一種更為原始的搜索引擎。它可能是《期刊文學(xué)讀者索引》或是一些卡片目錄。但你是說，那個(gè)時(shí)候他們會(huì)把整本書都讀完？他們每次都會(huì)看很長(zhǎng)很長(zhǎng)的文章嗎？他們讀它也就是為了找到其有用的地方，只是，谷歌的功能更強(qiáng)大，不是嗎？

卡爾：我們的大腦已經(jīng)適應(yīng)了這種收集信息的方式，就收集信息的方式這一點(diǎn)而言，我承認(rèn)谷歌的確非常有用，那也是我會(huì)經(jīng)常使用它的原因。然而，隨著我們大腦逐漸適應(yīng)這種方式——又一次，當(dāng)我們對(duì)新媒介產(chǎn)生依賴時(shí)就會(huì)發(fā)生這樣的事情——新媒介盛行，我們的大腦（也以同樣的方式）運(yùn)作著。你知道，“走馬觀花”開始占據(jù)并替代其他接收信息的模式。

比如，閱讀并不是人類大腦天生就擁有的基因特征，而是一種需要習(xí)得的能力。我們就像給大腦的神經(jīng)回路編程一樣，從小時(shí)候開始貫穿一生地進(jìn)行這種編程活動(dòng)，以完成這項(xiàng)任務(wù)。在使用任何信息媒介——任何我們用來收集信息以便閱讀或做其他事情的媒介，由于我們的大腦具有很強(qiáng)的適應(yīng)力和可塑性，神經(jīng)回路就會(huì)適應(yīng)那種新的媒介。比如，你知道，我在文章中也談及了，神經(jīng)學(xué)研究表明，利用表意文字來閱讀的人（如中國人），其大腦的神經(jīng)模式和用字母表進(jìn)行閱讀的人截然不同。同理，我們可以推斷出從網(wǎng)上讀取并獲得信息的做法確實(shí)會(huì)重塑這些神經(jīng)回路，使其運(yùn)作方式與我們從紙質(zhì)媒介上獲取信息時(shí)大不一樣。因此，是的，就生物學(xué)角度而言，我認(rèn)為谷歌將會(huì)——也正在不斷改變我們的大腦。

作者簡(jiǎn)介：尼古拉斯·卡爾，美國知名作家兼思想家，專研商業(yè)策略、資訊科技及兩者的交叉點(diǎn)，在《哈佛商業(yè)評(píng)論》發(fā)表過《IT沒有明天》、《大傳導(dǎo)：商務(wù)如點(diǎn)擊流》等文章。四獲《哈佛商業(yè)評(píng)論》麥肯錫獎(jiǎng)。作者在《谷歌愚化論？》一文中剖析自己的大腦退化歷程，并稱“上網(wǎng)閱讀時(shí)，人類已經(jīng)成為一臺(tái)咨詢解碼器”。人們享受網(wǎng)絡(luò)帶來的便捷，卻忽視了要付出的代價(jià)。