双语：社交网站让人情淡薄

屈联西

2011年01月25日  环球时报

　　They call themselves social networking sites but now it appears that the likes of Twitter and Facebook could be downright anti-social. A leading academic claims that the technology is threatening to dominate our lives, making us more isolated and "less human."
　　Professor Sherry Turkle has even branded the use of the social networking sites a form of "modern madness."
　　She argues that, under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, technology is isolating us from real human interactions in a cyber-reality that is a poor imitation of the real world。
　　Professor Turkle, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the US, is leading an attack on the information age with her book Alone Together。
　　The professor even suggests social networking can make us mad, citing "pathological behaviour"she has witnessed, such as mourners at funerals checking their iPhones。
　　Her book is part of an intellectual backlash in America calling for the people to devote less time to sites such as Twitter。
　　Other American academics have criticized the growing trend of internet activity. One, Professor William Kist, of Kent State University in Ohio, has cited the death in Brighton of Simone Back who posted her suicide note on Facebook at Christmas。
　　Not one of 42-year-old Miss Back's 1,058 "friends" on the site called for help. Instead they traded insults on her page。
　　However, defenders of Twitter and Facebook claim social media has many benefits and has, for example, led to more communication for people who are separated by long distances。
　　脸谱网、推特这些自称社交网络的网站其实有违社交功能的初衷，一位知名学者称技术正一点点蚕食我们的生活，让人们更加隔绝孤立，人情味越来越淡。
　　学者谢莉•图科尔甚至宣称使用社交网站本身就是一种“现代病态”。
　　她说，技术声称可以促进交流，实际上却让人们在虚拟的世界里与现实隔绝，剥夺与真人交流互动的机会。
　　美国麻省理工大学的图科尔教授在她的新书《集体孤独》中，抨击了这个信息时代。
　　她甚至认为社交网站让人失去理智，出现"病态行为"，如在葬礼上玩儿iPhone。
　　图科尔教授的新书代表了美国知识分子的反思，呼吁人们少上诸如推特这样的网站。
　　一些美国知识分子也对网络活动日益活跃这一趋势表示担忧，俄亥俄州的肯特州立大学教授威廉•基斯特提及布莱顿的西蒙•班克就在圣诞节时脸谱网上发表了自杀留言。
　　然而也有人为推特和脸谱辩护，称社交网站益处很多，例如，可以帮助分隔两地的人们更加容易的交流。