電腦，讓我們變得更笨

By Tim Wu

At 10 p.m. on September 22, 1912, Franz Kafka,then a twenty-nine-year-old lawyer, sat down at his typewriter in Prague and began to write.1. Franz Kafka: 弗朗茨·卡夫卡（1883—1924）， 20世紀(jì)奧地利德語小說家，文筆明凈而想象奇詭。他的代表作有《變形記》（The Metamorphosis）、《審判》（The Judgment）和《城堡》（The Castle）等；typewriter:（老式的）打字機(jī)；Prague: 布拉格，捷克共和國的首都，是一座歐洲歷史名城。He wrote and wrote, and eight hours later he had finished Das Urteil (The Judgment).

Kafka wrote in his diary, “I was hardly able to pull my legs out from under the desk; they had got so stiff2. stiff: 僵硬的，僵直的。from sitting. The fearful strain and joy, how the story developed before me, as if I were advancing over water.3. strain: （文學(xué)作品等的）格調(diào)，筆調(diào)；advance: 前進(jìn)，向前移?！?He later described the one-sitting method as his preferred means of writing. “Only in this way can writing be done, only with such coherence4. coherence: 連貫性。, with such a complete opening out of the body and soul.”

In April, 1951, on the sixth floor of a brownstone in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, Jack Kerouac began taping together pieces of tracing paper to create a hundred-andtwenty-foot-long roll of paper, which he called “the scroll.”5.1951年4月，在紐約切爾西區(qū)里一座赤褐色砂石建筑的六層，杰克·凱魯亞克將多張繪圖紙拼貼起來，組成了一卷長達(dá)120英尺（約37米）的卷紙，他稱之為“卷軸”。Jack Kerouac: 杰克·凱魯亞克（1922—1969），美國小說家、藝術(shù)家和詩人，是“垮掉的一代”中最有名的作家之一。他的代表作是《在路上》（On the Road）；tape: 用膠布把……粘牢；tracing paper: 繪圖紙，透寫紙。Three weeks later, typing without needing to pause and change sheets, he’d filled his scroll with the first draft of On the Road, without paragraph breaks or margins.6. paragraph break: 斷行；margin: 書頁邊的空白。

為了使計(jì)算機(jī)具有處理大量計(jì)算的功能，20世紀(jì)60年代的工程師們?cè)O(shè)計(jì)出了分時(shí)系統(tǒng)以及多線程操作，令多人共用一臺(tái)電腦成為現(xiàn)實(shí)。但他們做夢(mèng)也沒想到為了解決大型計(jì)算機(jī)處理速度的方案會(huì)被普及到大眾消費(fèi)市場；原本實(shí)現(xiàn)在一臺(tái)電腦上多人操作的需求卻被發(fā)展成了滿足個(gè)人同時(shí)進(jìn)行多種操作的欲望。但這真的能使我們變得更聰明，讓我們更高效地工作嗎？

In 1975, Steve Jobs, working the night shift at Atari, was asked if he could design a prototype of a new video game, Breakout, in four days.7. Steve Jobs: 史蒂芬·喬布斯（1955—2011），美國企業(yè)家，蘋果公司的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人之一；Atari:雅達(dá)利，美國一家電腦游戲機(jī)廠商；prototype:原型，樣板；Breakout: 一款由雅達(dá)利開發(fā)及發(fā)布的打磚塊街機(jī)游戲。游戲中，玩家控制一塊平臺(tái)左右移動(dòng)，用反彈球打擊不斷下降的磚塊。He took the assignment and contacted his friend Steve Wozniak8. Steve Wozniak: 斯蒂芬·沃茲尼亞克（1950— ），美國電腦工程師，曾與史蒂芬·喬布斯合伙創(chuàng)立蘋果電腦（今天的蘋果公司），被譽(yù)為是使電腦進(jìn)入大眾家庭的工程師。for help. Wozniak described the feat9. feat: 功績，壯舉。this way: “Four days? I didn’t think I could do it. I went four days with no sleep.Steve and I both got mononucleosis10. mononucleosis: 單核白血球增多癥，癥狀與感冒相似，但會(huì)導(dǎo)致疲勞或嚴(yán)重睡眠呼吸困難。, the sleeping sickness, and we delivered a working Breakout game.”

The accomplishments of Kafka, Kerouac, and Wozniak are impressive, but not completely atypical of what can be achieved by talented people in states of supreme concentration.11. 卡夫卡、凱魯亞克和沃茲尼亞克的成就確實(shí)令人刮目相看，但這些也并非完全非典型性事件，有才華者在注意力高度集中的狀態(tài)下能夠?qū)崿F(xiàn)類似的功績。atypical: 非典型的，不正常的。The more interesting question is this: Would their feats be harder today, or easier?

On the one hand, today’s computers feature programming and writing tools12. programming and writing tool: 編程工具和文字處理器。more powerful than anything available in the twentieth century. But, in a different way, each of these tasks would be much harder: on a modern machine, each man would face a more challenging battle with distraction13. distraction: 思想不集中，注意力分散。. Kafka might start writing his book and then, like most lawyers, realize he’d better check e-mail; so much for Das Urteil. Kerouac might get caught in his Twitter feed, or start blogging about his road trip.14. Twitter feed: 一條推特信息；blog: v. 寫博客，發(fā)博客。Wozniak might have corrected an erroneous Wikipedia entry in the midst of working on Breakout, and wrecked the collaboration that later became Apple.15. erroneous: 錯(cuò)誤的，不正確的；Wikipedia: 維基百科，一個(gè)使用協(xié)同編輯、多語言版本的網(wǎng)絡(luò)百科全書；entry:（詞典等的）條目；wreck:損害，挫敗。

Kafka, Kerouac, and Wozniak had one advantage over us: they worked on machines that did not readily do more than one thing at a time, easily yielding to our con flicting desires.16. readily: 容易地，沒有難度地；yield to: 屈服，讓步。And, while distraction was surely available—say, by reading the newspaper, or chatting with friends—there was a crucial difference. Today’s machines don’t just allow distraction;they promote17. promote: 促進(jìn)，提倡。it. The Web calls us constantly, and the machines, instead of keeping us on task, make it easy to get drawn in—and even add their own distractions to the mix.18. drawn in: 被吸引，被引誘；mix:〈口〉混亂，糊涂。In short, we have built a generation of “distraction machines” that make great feats of concentrated effort harder instead of easier.

When, in the sixties, J. C. R. Licklider and Douglas Engelbart proposed that computers should ultimately serve as a tool of human augmentation,they changed what computers would come to be.19. J. C. R. Licklider: J.C.R.利克里德（1915—1990），美國心理學(xué)家、計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家，被稱為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)之父，他互動(dòng)計(jì)算以及“巨型網(wǎng)絡(luò)”的構(gòu)想成為互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的種子；Douglas Engelbart: 道格拉斯·恩格爾巴特（1925—2013），美國發(fā)明家，最廣為人知的是他發(fā)明了鼠標(biāo)。他也是人機(jī)交互的先鋒，開發(fā)了超文本系統(tǒng)、網(wǎng)絡(luò)計(jì)算機(jī)以及圖形用戶界面；ultimately: 最后，根本上；augmentation: 加強(qiáng)，提高。The computer, they argued, shouldn’t try to be independently intelligent. Rather, it should be a tool that works with the human brain to make it more powerful.

From this perspective, the multitasking capabilities of today’s computers are sometimes a form of augmentation—but only sometimes. It can be helpful to toggle between browser pages and a to-do list, or to talk on Skype while looking at a document.20. toggle:〈計(jì)〉按雙態(tài)鍵，這里指同時(shí)操作；browser:〈計(jì)〉瀏覽器；Skype: Skype網(wǎng)絡(luò)電話，一款網(wǎng)絡(luò)語音溝通工具。But other times we need to use computers for tasks that require sustained concentration, and it is here that machines sometimes degrade human potential.21. sustained: 持續(xù)的，持久的；degrade: 降級(jí)，降低。

While the brain is good at many things, it is rather bad at others. It’s not very good at achieving extreme states of concentration through sustained attention. It takes great training and effort to maintain attention on one object, because the brain is highly susceptible to22. be susceptible to: 易受……影響的，對(duì)……敏感的。distractions. Second,the brain is not good at conscious multitasking, or trying to pay active attention to more than one thing at once. Perhaps computer designers once hoped that our machines could train the brain to multitask more effectively, but recent research suggests that this effort has failed.

In short, we are easy to distract, and very bad at doing two or more things at the same time. Yet our computers, supposedly23. supposedly: 據(jù)稱，據(jù)推測。our servants, constantly distract us and ask us to process multiple streams of information at the same time. It can make you wonder, just who is in charge here?

To be sure, efforts are being made to deal with the problems I’ve described. Some programs have been designed to give users a way to boost productivity by switching off the Internet, the chief source of distraction in our times.24. boost: 促進(jìn)，推進(jìn)；switch off: 關(guān)掉，切斷。Some people turn to caffeine or Adderall as an aid to concentration,25. caffeine: 咖啡因；Adderall: 安非他明，一種治療注意力缺失、多動(dòng)癥等疾病的藥物。or achieve similar effects through the use of emotions, such as the fear created by deadlines or the possibility of being fired

But we should be searching for solutions that don’t rely on drugs or imminent26. imminent: 即將發(fā)生的，臨近的。job loss. What we need are machines that are built from the ground up purposely to minimize distraction and help us sustain attention for hard tasks.27. from the ground up: 從頭開始，重新地；purposely: 故意地，有目的性地；minimize: 使……減至最少，使……縮到最小。We need computers and devices that return to the project of human augmentation by taking the brain’s limits seriously, and helping us overcome them.

What this looks like, I’m not exactly sure, although I am sure we should be trying to find out. Perhaps all we need are computers that lock into different modes: chore mode, communication mode and concentrated work mode.28. mode: 模式，狀態(tài)；chore: 日常零星工作，雜活。In the work modes, the machine would do what it could to keep you on track29. on track: 保持軌道，保持在正確方向上。, in ways both subtle and less so. We also need designers cognizant of the brain’s weaknesses,who strive to eliminate or minimize unnecessary distractions,such as beeps for e-mails, bouncing icons and unnecessary pop-up windows.30. cognizant: 知曉的，覺察到的；eliminate: 消除，根除；beep: 嘟嘟聲，嗶嗶聲；bouncing icon:跳來跳去（以吸引注意力）的圖標(biāo)；pop-up window: 彈出式窗口。

There will always be some who say that all anyone needs to deal with these problems is better discipline or will power—that Kafka, being Kafka,would stay on task in 2013 just as well as in 1912. I’m not so sure. Discipline is useful, but so is an environment and tools that actually help, rather than hinder31. hinder: 妨礙，阻礙。. The strange part is that we now have technological powers to shape our environment that were unimaginable to earlier generations, yet we don’t use them with a realistic view of the brain’s weaknesses.

Perhaps a single rule is enough:our computers should never make us stupider.