如何擺脫對手機屏幕的狂熱迷戀？

Smartphones were once the best thing to happen to the tech industry — and for a while, it seemed, to all of us, too. In the 11 years since the iPhone made its debut, smartphones have subsumed just about every other gadget and altered every business, from news to retail to taxis to television, ultimately reordering everything about how we understand media, politics and reality itself.

智能手機曾經是科技行業(yè)的福音——曾經有那么一段時間，它也是我們所有人的福音。在iPhone首次亮相11年后，智能手機幾乎納入了其他所有的小設備，改變了從新聞、零售到出租車、電視等所有業(yè)務，并最終徹底改變我們對媒體、政治和現實本身的理解。

But now that smartphones have achieved dominance, revolution is again in the air.

但是如今智能手機已經取得了統(tǒng)治地位，變革的硝煙再起。

Global smartphone sales are plateauing for a very obvious reason: Pretty much anyone who can afford one already has one, and increasingly there are questions about whether we are using our phones too much and too mindlessly. At Google’s and Apple’s recent developer conferences, executives took the stage to show how much more irresistible they were making our phones. Then each company unveiled something else: Software to help you use your phone a lot less.

全球智能手機銷量趨于穩(wěn)定的原因非常明顯：基本上買得起手機的人都人手一個，而且漸漸的也有越來越多的人質疑我們是否在過度使用手機，且過于盲目。在谷歌和蘋果最近的開發(fā)者大會上，舞臺上的高管們展示了他們正在把我們的手機制作得多么令人難以抗拒。然后，每家公司都公布了另外一個東西：幫助你大幅減少手機使用時間的軟件。

There’s a reason tech companies are feeling this tension between making phones better and worrying they are already too addictive. We’ve hit what I call Peak Screen.

在制造更好的手機和對手機已經過于成癮的擔心之間，科技公司感受到了這種緊張關系是有原因的。我把這稱之為，我們已達到了“屏幕頂峰”。

For much of the last decade, a technology industry ruled by smartphones has pursued a singular goal of completely conquering our eyes. It has given us phones with ever-bigger screens and phones with unbelievable cameras, not to mention virtual reality goggles and several attempts at camera-glasses.

在過去十年的大部分時間中，被智能手機統(tǒng)治的技術行業(yè)所追求的目標一直是完全占領我們的眼睛。它向我們供應越來越大的屏幕，難以置信的攝像頭，更別提虛擬現實眼鏡和有過多次嘗試的攝像頭眼鏡。

Tech has now captured pretty much all visual capacity. Americans spend three to four hours a day looking at their phones, and about 11 hours a day looking at screens of any kind.

科技現已基本上俘獲了我們全部的視力。美國人每天會花三到四個小時盯著手機，看各類屏幕的時間則是11個小時。

So tech giants are building the beginning of something new: a less insistently visual tech world, a digital landscape that relies on voice assistants, headphones, watches and other wearables to take some pressure off our eyes.

因此，科技巨頭正在打造某種新的開頭：一個不總是視覺的科技世界，一個依靠聲音輔助、耳機、手表以及其他可穿戴設備減輕眼睛負擔的數字圖景。

This could be a nightmare; we may simply add these new devices to our screen-addled lives. But depending on how these technologies develop, a digital ecosystem that demands less of our eyes could be better for everyone — less immersive, less addictive, more conducive to multitasking, less socially awkward, and perhaps even a salve for our politics and social relations.

這可能是個噩夢，我們可能只會把這些新的設備加入我們沉迷屏幕的生活當中。但一種不需那么費眼的數碼生態(tài)可能對大家都好，具體取決于這些科技將如何發(fā)展——少一些浸沒、少一些沉迷，更有助于處理多項任務，減少社交尷尬，甚至或許還能拯救我們的政治和社會關系。

Who will bring us this future? Amazon and Google are clearly big players, but don’t discount the company that got us to Peak Screen in the first place. With advances to the Apple Watch and AirPods headphones, Apple is slowly and almost quietly creating an alternative to its phones.

誰會帶給我們這樣的未來?亞馬遜(Amazon)和谷歌顯然是主要玩家，但不要小瞧了那些最初讓我們陷入“屏幕頂峰”境地的公司。隨著蘋果手表和AirPods耳機的進步，蘋果公司正在慢慢地、幾乎悄無聲息地為自己的手機創(chuàng)造一個替代品。

If it works, it could change everything again. As I argue below, there are many ways that screens have become too dominant in our lives. The sooner we find something else, the better.

如果成功了，它可能會再次改變一切。正如我接下來論述的，屏幕在我們生活的很多方面占據了過于主導的地位。我們越早找到替代品越好。

Screens are insatiable. At a cognitive level, they are voracious vampires for your attention, and as soon as you look at one, you are basically toast.

屏幕貪得無厭。在認知層面上，它是你注意力的貪婪吸血鬼，只要你看它一眼，基本上就會被它俘獲。

There are studies that bear this out. One, by a team led by Adrian Ward, a marketing professor at the University of Texas’ business school, found that the mere presence of a smartphone within glancing distance can significantly reduce your cognitive capacity. Your phone is so irresistible that when you can see it, you cannot help but spend a lot of otherwise valuable mental energy trying to not look at it.

有些研究證明了這一點。德克薩斯大學(University of Texas)商學院的營銷學教授阿德里安·沃德(Adrian Ward)領導的一個團隊發(fā)現，哪怕只是視野范圍內有一部智能手機，就會顯著降低你的認知能力。你的手機具有難以抵抗的魅力，你一看到它，就要花費大量寶貴的精力努力不去看它。

When you do give in, you lose your mind.

當你屈服時，你會失去理智。

“What you get sucked into is not the one thing that caught your attention — your text message or tweet or whatever,” said Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at the technology research firm Creative Strategies. Instead, you unlock your phone and instantly, almost unconsciously, descend into the irresistible splendors of the digital world — emerging 30 minutes later, stupefied and dazed.

“你陷入的不只是那件引起你注意的事——短信、推文什么的，”科技研究公司創(chuàng)意策略(Creative Strategies)的分析師卡羅琳娜·米拉內西(Carolina Milanesi)說。只要打開手機，你就會很快地、幾乎是無意識地陷入數字世界不可抗拒的光芒之中——在里面沉浸了30分鐘后，你會變得昏昏沉沉，頭暈目眩。

“You open this irresistible box, and you can’t fight it,” she said.

“只要打開這個難以抗拒的盒子，你就輸了，”她說。

Tech companies understand this power, of course; our inability to resist screens explains why phone screens keep getting bigger.

科技公司當然理解這種力量，屏幕的難以抗拒可以解釋為什么手機屏幕越來越大。

Apple once argued that increasing the iPhone’s screen size would make for a phone that would be too awkward for your hands. “No one’s going to buy that,” Steve Jobs predicted of big-screen phones in 2010.

蘋果曾認為，增加iPhone的屏幕尺寸會讓手機顯得笨拙。“沒人會買那個，”史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)2010年在預測大屏幕手機的前景時說。

He was wrong. Rivals, led by Samsung, found that big-screen phones sold very well. The eyes won out over the hands. Eventually Apple joined the party, making iPhones with bigger and then still bigger displays. The largest-screen iPhones now account for half of Apple’s sales and the majority of its profits.

他錯了。以三星為首的競爭對手發(fā)現，大屏手機的銷量非常好。眼睛打敗了手。最終，蘋果也加入了這個陣營，生產屏幕越來越大的iPhone。目前，屏幕最大的iPhone占蘋果銷量的一半，是它大部分的利潤來源。

But screens have now become a crutch for technologists, a lazy, catchall way to add digital experiences to every product.

但如今，屏幕已成為技術人員的拐杖，是給每一種產品增加數字體驗的偷懶、籠統(tǒng)的辦法。

We have seen this in cars for years. By placing interior controls on touch screens rather than tactile knobs and switches, carmakers have made vehicles much more annoying and dangerous to interact with. The Tesla Model 3, the most anticipated car on the planet, takes this to an absurd level. As several reviewers have lamented, just about every one of the car’s controls — including adjustments for the side mirrors — requires access through a screen.

我們已經在汽車上看到它很多年了。汽車制造商們把內部控制功能轉移到屏幕上，而不是通過觸摸旋鈕和開關，這讓與汽車的互動變得更加惱人和危險。特斯拉Model 3是世界上最受期待的汽車，它已經把這個問題提升到了荒謬的程度。正如幾位汽車評論員所哀嘆的，汽車的每一種控制——包括對側鏡的調整——都需要通過屏幕進行。

Or look at augmented reality, the technology that allows you to see digital imagery superimposed on the real world. In a few specific uses — turning your face into a dog’s on Snapchat — this can be fun. But too often, A.R. feels gimmicky. Rather than commingling the digital and the real, it simply uses a screen to usurp the world around you.

或者看看增強現實技術，它能讓你看到疊映在現實世界上的數字圖像。在某些特定用途上，比如在Snapchat上把你的臉變成狗的臉，可能還挺有趣的。但太多的時候，增強現實只是一個噱頭。它不是把數字世界和現實世界結合起來，而是用屏幕篡奪你周圍的世界。

At Apple’s developer conference this month, Martin Sanders, a Lego executive, showed off a new A.R. Lego set. When he pointed his iPad at a Lego structure, his screen filled with digital fireworks, superheros, sports cars — a whole bustling Lego town that he didn’t have to build with his hands or imagine with his head.

在本月的蘋果開發(fā)者大會上，樂高(Lego)的高管馬丁·桑德斯(Martin Sanders)展示了一組新的增強現實樂高套裝。他把iPad指向一個樂高建筑，屏幕上滿是數字煙火、超級英雄和跑車——一整座喧鬧的樂高城，他無需用雙手去搭建或用頭腦去想像。

“There’s so much to do here!” Mr. Sanders exclaimed as he and an assistant stood completely still, staring at animated Legos through a piece of digital glass. It was bizarre. The whole point of Lego is physical interaction, but thanks to A.R., he had turned Lego into just another video game.

“這里有很多可做的事情!”桑德斯宣稱。他和一名助手站在那里一動不動，透過一塊數字玻璃盯著動畫樂高。這挺奇怪的。樂高的全部意義在于實體互動，但有了增強現實，他把樂高變成了另一個電子游戲。

There are two ways we may break our fevered addiction to screens.

有兩種方法可以讓我們擺脫對屏幕的狂熱迷戀。

First, we will need to try to use our phones more mindfully, which requires a combination of willpower and technology.

首先，我們需要更用心地使用手機，這需要意志力和技術的結合。

Help is on the way. For the last week, I’ve been using Screen Time, one of the new features in Apple’s next version of its mobile operating system. The software gives you valuable information about how much you are using your phone, and it can even block you from using apps that you deem unhealthy. I found Screen Time very well designed, and I suspect it will profoundly change how we use our phones.

援兵馬上就到了。上周，我一直在使用屏幕時間(Screen Time)，它是蘋果的下一代移動操作系統(tǒng)的一個新功能。這個軟件可以提供有關手機使用情況的寶貴信息，甚至可以阻止你使用那些你認為不健康的應用程序。我發(fā)現屏幕時間設計得很好，我覺得它會深刻改變我們使用手機的方式。

But in addition to helping us resist phones, the tech industry will need to come up with other, less immersive ways to interact with digital world. Three technologies may help with this: voice assistants, of which Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant are the best, and Apple’s two innovations, AirPods and the Apple Watch.

但是，除了幫助我們抵制手機之外，科技行業(yè)還需要想出其他不那么容易讓我們沉迷其中的與數字世界互動的方式。有三種技術也許可以幫助實現這個目標：語音助手——亞馬遜的Alexa和谷歌助手是其中最好的——以及蘋果的兩個創(chuàng)新產品：AirPods和Apple Watch。

All of these technologies share a common idea. Without big screens, they are far less immersive than a phone, allowing for quick digital hits: You can buy a movie ticket, add a task to a to-do list, glance at a text message or ask about the weather without going anywhere near your Irresistible Screen of Splendors.

所有這些技術都有一個共同的想法。它們沒有大屏幕，所以遠沒有手機那么容易讓人沉迷，它可以讓你快速完成數字任務：你可以買一張電影票，在待辦事項清單上增加一項任務，瀏覽一條短信，或者詢問天氣情況——你做這一切都無需靠近你無法抗拒的華麗屏幕。

These are all works in progress. Voice assistants still cannot do everything for you, though Google and Amazon have thousands of engineers working to improve them. AirPods are fantastic — they have fewer connection issues than any other wireless headphones — and after years of refinement, the Apple Watch shows you just enough stuff from your phone to make it useful without becoming overbearing.

這些技術都還在完善中。語音助手還不能為你做所有的事，盡管谷歌和亞馬遜安排了成千上萬名工程師努力改進它們。AirPods很棒——它的連接問題比其他任何無線耳機都少——經過多年改進，Apple Watch能向你展示足夠多來自手機的內容，它變得有用卻又不會主導你的生活。

If Apple could only improve Siri, its own voice assistant, the Watch and AirPods could combine to make something new: a mobile computer that is not tied to a huge screen, that lets you get stuff done on the go without the danger of being sucked in. Imagine if, instead of tapping endlessly on apps, you could just tell your AirPods, “Make me dinner reservations at 7” or “Check with my wife’s calendar to see when we can have a date night this week.”

如果蘋果能改進自己的語音助手Siri，那么蘋果手表和AirPods就可以結合起來，變成一種全新的東西：一個沒有大屏幕的移動電腦，它可以讓你快速完成任務，而不會陷進去。想象一下，你不必在應用程序上不停地敲擊，你可以對AirPods說：“預訂晚上7點的餐廳桌位”或“查看我妻子的日程，看看這周哪天能搞個約會之夜”。

Apple declined to comment on its plans. There are enough reports, though, that suggest Apple is not blind to such a future. It has plans for improving AirPods, according to Bloomberg, and I’ve been impressed by how steadily the company keeps adding features to the Watch — including the ability, in its latest model, to use it away from your phone.

蘋果拒絕就它的計劃置評。不過，有足夠多的報道表明，蘋果并非對這樣的未來視而不見。據彭博社(Bloomberg)報道，該公司計劃改進AirPods。蘋果一直在不斷增加蘋果手表的功能，這種穩(wěn)步前進令人贊嘆，其中包括它最新款的一個功能——可以遠離手機使用它。

Apple has never been scared of disrupting its own best inventions. By rethinking screens, it may have a chance to do that once more.

蘋果從來不怕打破自己最好的發(fā)明。通過重新思考屏幕，它可能有機會再次這樣做。