“手機(jī)里的惡魔”？硅谷父母對(duì)電子產(chǎn)品說(shuō)不

SAN FRANCISCO — The people who are closest to a thing are often the most wary of it. Technologists know how phones really work, and many have decided they don’t want their own children anywhere near them.

舊金山——對(duì)一件東西愈了解往往就愈警惕。技術(shù)專家們知道手機(jī)的運(yùn)作原理，所以許多人拿定主意，不讓自己的孩子靠近手機(jī)。

A wariness that has been slowly brewing is turning into a regionwide consensus: The benefits of screens as a learning tool are overblown, and the risks for addiction and stunting development seem high. The debate in Silicon Valley now is about how much exposure to phones is O.K.

有一種謹(jǐn)慎的態(tài)度一直在發(fā)酵中，如今這種態(tài)度變成了地區(qū)性共識(shí)：屏幕作為學(xué)習(xí)工具的好處被夸大了，上癮和阻礙孩子發(fā)育的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)似乎很高。如今硅谷爭(zhēng)論的是，接觸手機(jī)到什么程度是合適的。

“Doing no screen time is almost easier than doing a little,” said Kristin Stecher, a former social computing researcher married to a Facebook engineer. “If my kids do get it at all, they just want it more.”

“不看屏幕比花一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)時(shí)間看屏幕要容易，”嫁給了一位Facebook工程師的前社會(huì)計(jì)算研究者克里斯廷·施特歇爾(Kristin Stecher)表示。“如果我的孩子有使用屏幕的時(shí)間，那他們只會(huì)想要更多。”

Ms. Stecher, 37, and her husband, Rushabh Doshi, researched screen time and came to a simple conclusion: they wanted almost none of it in their house. Their daughters, ages 5 and 3, have no screen time “budget,” no regular hours they are allowed to be on screens. The only time a screen can be used is during the travel portion of a long car ride (the four-hour drive to Tahoe counts) or during a plane trip.

37歲的施特歇爾和丈夫魯沙巴·多希(Rushabh Doshi)一直在對(duì)使用屏幕的時(shí)間長(zhǎng)短進(jìn)行研究，他們得出了一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)單的結(jié)論：他們基本上不希望家里有人使用屏幕。他們有兩個(gè)女兒，一個(gè)五歲，一個(gè)三歲，兩個(gè)孩子完全沒(méi)有使用屏幕時(shí)間的“預(yù)算”，也就是說(shuō)，他們完全不允許兩個(gè)孩子有定期使用屏幕的時(shí)間。唯一能使用屏幕的時(shí)候，是在長(zhǎng)時(shí)間坐車期間(開(kāi)車四小時(shí)去塔霍湖的路上)，或是在坐飛機(jī)的時(shí)候。

Recently she has softened this approach. Every Friday evening the family watches one movie.There is a looming issue Ms. Stecher sees in the future: Her husband, who is 39, loves video games and thinks they can be educational and entertaining. She does not.

最近，她軟化了這一立場(chǎng)。每周五，這家人都會(huì)看一部電影。在施特歇爾看來(lái)，未來(lái)存在一個(gè)迫在眉睫的問(wèn)題：她39歲的丈夫愛(ài)打電子游戲，并且認(rèn)為電子游戲既有教育意義，又有娛樂(lè)性。她可不這么認(rèn)為。

“We’ll cross that when we come to it,” said Ms. Stecher, who is due soon with a boy.

“遇到這個(gè)問(wèn)題時(shí)，我們會(huì)出現(xiàn)沖突，”即將誕下一名男孩的施特歇爾說(shuō)。

Some of the people who built video programs are now horrified by how many places a child can now watch a video.

如今孩子能看視頻的地方之多，讓一些打造視頻節(jié)目的人感到震驚。

Asked about limiting screen time for children, Hunter Walk, a venture capitalist who for years directed product for YouTube at Google, sent a photo of a potty training toilet with an iPad attached and wrote: “Hashtag ‘products we didn’t buy.’”

當(dāng)被問(wèn)及限制孩子使用屏幕的時(shí)間時(shí)，在谷歌(Google)為YouTube進(jìn)行產(chǎn)品指導(dǎo)的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資人亨特·沃克(Hunter Walk)發(fā)來(lái)了一張圖片，上面顯示著一個(gè)帶有iPad訓(xùn)練孩子上廁所的便盆，他寫道：“#‘我們不認(rèn)同的產(chǎn)品’”。

Athena Chavarria, who worked as an executive assistant at Facebook and is now at Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic arm, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, said: “I am convinced the devil lives in our phones and is wreaking havoc on our children.”

曾在Facebook擔(dān)任行政助理，如今在馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)的慈善機(jī)構(gòu)“陳-扎克伯格行動(dòng)”(Chan Zuckerberg Initiative)任職的阿西納·查瓦里亞(Athena Chavarria)說(shuō)：“我深信我們的手機(jī)里有惡魔，并且這個(gè)惡魔正在對(duì)我們的孩子造成傷害。”

Ms. Chavarria did not let her children have cellphones until high school, and even now bans phone use in the car and severely limits it at home.

直到高中，查瓦里亞都不讓自己的孩子擁有手機(jī)，并且即便是現(xiàn)在，她也仍然禁止在車?yán)锸褂檬謾C(jī)，家里使用手機(jī)也嚴(yán)格受限。

She said she lives by the mantra that the last child in the class to get a phone wins. Her daughter did not get a phone until she started ninth grade.

她說(shuō)自己信奉一句俗話，即班上的贏家是最后一個(gè)有手機(jī)的孩子。她的女兒直到九年級(jí)開(kāi)始時(shí)，才有了一部手機(jī)。

“Other parents are like, ‘Aren’t you worried you don’t know where your kids are when you can’t find them?’” Ms. Chavarria said. “And I’m like, ‘No, I do not need to know where my kids are every second of the day.’”For longtime tech leaders, watching how the tools they built affect their children has felt like a reckoning on their life and work.

“其他父母會(huì)說(shuō)，‘當(dāng)你找不到孩子的時(shí)候，你不擔(dān)心他們?cè)谀膬簡(jiǎn)?’”查瓦里亞說(shuō)。“我說(shuō)，‘不擔(dān)心，我不需要每分每秒都知道我的孩子們?cè)谀睦铩?rsquo;”對(duì)于在科技業(yè)長(zhǎng)期擔(dān)任領(lǐng)導(dǎo)人的人士來(lái)說(shuō)，看著這些他們打造的工具對(duì)自己孩子的影響，感覺(jué)就像是對(duì)他們生活和工作的一種報(bào)應(yīng)。

Among those is Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired and now the chief executive of a robotics and drone company. He is also the founder of GeekDad.com.

在這些人當(dāng)中，就有《連線》(Wired)前主編克里斯·安德森(Chris Anderson)。他目前是一家機(jī)器人和無(wú)人機(jī)公司的首席執(zhí)行官，并且創(chuàng)辦了GeekDad.com。

“On the scale between candy and crack cocaine, it’s closer to crack cocaine,” Mr. Anderson said of screens.

“在糖果和可卡因之間，它更接近于可卡因，”安德森如此評(píng)價(jià)那些屏幕。

Technologists building these products and writers observing the tech revolution were naïve, he said.

打造出這些產(chǎn)品的技術(shù)專家和觀察科技革命的作者們都很天真，他說(shuō)。

“We thought we could control it,” Mr. Anderson said. “And this is beyond our power to control. This is going straight to the pleasure centers of the developing brain. This is beyond our capacity as regular parents to understand.”

“我們以為能控制它，”安德森說(shuō)。“但它已經(jīng)超越了我們的控制能力。它直接被傳送到了正在發(fā)育的大腦的愉悅中樞。這超越了我們作為普通父母的理解能力。”

He has five children and 12 tech rules. They include: no phones until the summer before high school, no screens in bedrooms, network-level content blocking, no social media until age 13, no iPads at all and screen time schedules enforced by Google Wifi that he controls from his phone. Bad behavior? The child goes offline for 24 hours.

他有五個(gè)孩子，給他們定了12條與科技相關(guān)的規(guī)則。其中包括：上高中前的那個(gè)暑假才能有手機(jī);臥室里不能有屏幕;網(wǎng)絡(luò)級(jí)內(nèi)容屏蔽;13歲才能用社交媒體;絕對(duì)禁止使用iPad;對(duì)使用屏幕的時(shí)間設(shè)下時(shí)間表，該時(shí)間表由谷歌Wifi執(zhí)行，他可以從自己的手機(jī)上進(jìn)行控制。孩子不聽(tīng)話?那就斷網(wǎng)24小時(shí)。

“I didn’t know what we were doing to their brains until I started to observe the symptoms and the consequences,” Mr. Anderson said.“This is scar tissue talking. We’ve made every mistake in the book, and I think we got it wrong with some of my kids,” Mr. Anderson said. “We glimpsed into the chasm of addiction, and there were some lost years, which we feel bad about.”

“直到我注意到癥狀和后果前，我都不知道我們對(duì)他們的大腦做了什么，”安德森說(shuō)。“這可是瘢痕組織在說(shuō)話。我們犯下了規(guī)則里的所有錯(cuò)，而且我認(rèn)為，我們?cè)诤⒆由砩戏噶隋e(cuò)，”安德森說(shuō)。“我們看到了上癮的深淵，錯(cuò)了幾個(gè)年頭，對(duì)此我們感到很遺憾”。

His children attended private elementary school, where he saw the administration introduce iPads and smart whiteboards, only to “descend into chaos and then pull back from it all.”

他的子女上的是私立小學(xué)，他看到學(xué)校會(huì)用iPad和智能白板，結(jié)果“陷入了混亂，之后從中退出”。

This idea that Silicon Valley parents are wary about tech is not new. The godfathers of tech expressed these concerns years ago, and concern has been loudest from the top.

硅谷父母對(duì)科技感到擔(dān)憂并非新鮮事?？萍冀谈?jìng)兌嗄昵熬驮磉_(dá)過(guò)這些擔(dān)憂，來(lái)自最頂層人士的擔(dān)心聲音最大。

Tim Cook, the C.E.O. of Apple, said earlier this year that he would not let his nephew join social networks. Bill Gates banned cellphones until his children were teenagers, and Melinda Gates wrote that she wished they had waited even longer. Steve Jobs would not let his young children near iPads.

蘋果(Apple)CEO蒂姆·庫(kù)克(Tim Cook)今年早些時(shí)候表示，他不會(huì)讓自己的侄子上社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)。比爾·蓋茨(Bill Gates)禁止他的孩子在十幾歲之前用手機(jī)，而梅琳達(dá)·蓋茨(Melinda Gates)曾寫道，她希望他們可以再晚一些給孩子手機(jī)。史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)不會(huì)讓自己年幼的孩子靠近iPad。

But in the last year, a fleet of high-profile Silicon Valley defectors have been sounding alarms in increasingly dire terms about what these gadgets do to the human brain. Suddenly rank-and-file Silicon Valley workers are obsessed. No-tech homes are cropping up across the region. Nannies are being asked to sign no-phone contracts.

但在去年，對(duì)于這些電子產(chǎn)品對(duì)人腦的影響，一群著名硅谷變節(jié)者發(fā)出了越來(lái)越可怕的警告。突然間，硅谷的普通員工對(duì)這個(gè)概念癡迷了起來(lái)。整個(gè)地區(qū)突然出現(xiàn)了各種對(duì)高科技電子產(chǎn)品說(shuō)不的家庭。保姆們被要求簽署不用手機(jī)的合同。

Those who have exposed their children to screens try to talk them out of addiction by explaining how the tech works.

那些讓孩子接觸屏幕的人，試圖通過(guò)解釋科技的運(yùn)作原理，說(shuō)服他們戒除屏幕癮。

John Lilly, a Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist with Greylock Partners and the former C.E.O. of Mozilla, said he tries to help his 13-year-old son understand that he is being manipulated by those who built the technology.

在硅谷工作的Greylock Partners公司風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資人約翰·利利(John Lilly)表示，他試圖幫助自己13歲的兒子理解，他受到了那些打造這些科技產(chǎn)品的人的操縱。利利曾是摩斯拉(Mozilla)的前CEO。

“I try to tell him somebody wrote code to make you feel this way — I’m trying to help him understand how things are made, the values that are going into things and what people are doing to create that feeling,” Mr. Lilly said. “And he’s like, ‘I just want to spend my 20 bucks to get my Fortnite skins.’”

“我盡力告訴他，有人專門寫代碼，就是為了讓你有這種感受——我在試圖幫他理解這些東西是如何被打造出來(lái)的，這些東西其中的價(jià)值觀，以及為了創(chuàng)造出這種感覺(jué)，人們都做了什么，”利利說(shuō)。“他的反應(yīng)是，‘我只想花20美元，拿到《堡壘之夜》(Fortnite)的皮膚’。”

And there are those in tech who disagree that screens are dangerous. Jason Toff, 32, who ran the video platform Vine and now works for Google, lets his 3-year-old play on an iPad, which he believes is no better or worse than a book. This opinion is unpopular enough with his fellow tech workers that he feels there is now “a stigma.”

此外，科技業(yè)還有一些人，不同意屏幕很危險(xiǎn)的觀點(diǎn)。32歲的杰森·托夫(Jason Toff)曾運(yùn)營(yíng)視頻平臺(tái)Vine，如今是谷歌的員工，他會(huì)讓自己三歲的兒子玩iPad。在他看來(lái)，iPad和一本書沒(méi)什么差別。這種觀點(diǎn)在他的科技業(yè)同行那里不怎么受歡迎，以至于他覺(jué)得現(xiàn)在這是“一種不光彩的感覺(jué)”。

“One reaction I got just yesterday was, ‘Doesn’t it worry you that all the major tech execs are limiting screen time?’” Mr. Toff said. “And I was like, ‘Maybe it should, but I guess I’ve always been skeptical of norms.’ People are just scared of the unknown.”

“昨天我得到的一種回應(yīng)是，‘所有主要的科技公司高管都在限制屏幕使用時(shí)間，你不擔(dān)心嗎?’”托夫說(shuō)。“我的回答是，‘也許它應(yīng)該被限制，但我可能對(duì)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)行為一直都持懷疑態(tài)度。’人們只是害怕未知。”

“It’s contrarian,” Mr. Toff said. “But I feel like I’m speaking for a lot of parents that are afraid of speaking out loud for fear of judgment.”

“這有些離經(jīng)叛道，”托夫表示。“但我覺(jué)得自己是在為許多因?yàn)閾?dān)心被指指點(diǎn)點(diǎn)，而不敢大聲說(shuō)出來(lái)的父母發(fā)聲。”

He said he thinks back to his own childhood growing up watching a lot of TV. “I think I turned out O.K.,” Mr. Toff said.

他說(shuō)，回想起自己小時(shí)候看了很多電視。“我覺(jué)得我最后也沒(méi)什么問(wèn)題，”托夫表示。