电脑，让我们变得更笨

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世纪奥地利德语小说家，文笔明净而想象奇诡。他的代表作有《变形记》（The Metamorphosis）、《审判》（The Judgment）和《城堡》（The Castle）等；typewriter:（老式的）打字机；Prague: 布拉格，捷克共和国的首都，是一座欧洲历史名城。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: （文学作品等的）格调，笔调；advance: 前进，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: 连贯性。, 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，在纽约切尔西区里一座赤褐色砂石建筑的六层，杰克·凯鲁亚克将多张绘图纸拼贴起来，组成了一卷长达120英尺（约37米）的卷纸，他称之为“卷轴”。Jack Kerouac: 杰克·凯鲁亚克（1922—1969），美国小说家、艺术家和诗人，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: 用胶布把……粘牢；tracing paper: 绘图纸，透写纸。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: 断行；margin: 书页边的空白。

为了使计算机具有处理大量计算的功能，20世纪60年代的工程师们设计出了分时系统以及多线程操作，令多人共用一台电脑成为现实。但他们做梦也没想到为了解决大型计算机处理速度的方案会被普及到大众消费市场；原本实现在一台电脑上多人操作的需求却被发展成了满足个人同时进行多种操作的欲望。但这真的能使我们变得更聪明，让我们更高效地工作吗？

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·乔布斯（1955—2011），美国企业家，苹果公司的联合创始人之一；Atari:雅达利，美国一家电脑游戏机厂商；prototype:原型，样板；Breakout: 一款由雅达利开发及发布的打砖块街机游戏。游戏中，玩家控制一块平台左右移动，用反弹球打击不断下降的砖块。He took the assignment and contacted his friend Steve Wozniak8. Steve Wozniak: 斯蒂芬·沃兹尼亚克（1950— ），美国电脑工程师，曾与史蒂芬·乔布斯合伙创立苹果电脑（今天的苹果公司），被誉为是使电脑进入大众家庭的工程师。for help. Wozniak described the feat9. feat: 功绩，壮举。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: 单核白血球增多症，症状与感冒相似，但会导致疲劳或严重睡眠呼吸困难。, 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、凯鲁亚克和沃兹尼亚克的成就确实令人刮目相看，但这些也并非完全非典型性事件，有才华者在注意力高度集中的状态下能够实现类似的功绩。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: 编程工具和文字处理器。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: 一条推特信息；blog: v. 写博客，发博客。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: 错误的，不正确的；Wikipedia: 维基百科，一个使用协同编辑、多语言版本的网络百科全书；entry:（词典等的）条目；wreck:损害，挫败。

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，没有难度地；yield to: 屈服，让步。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: 促进，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，被引诱；mix:〈口〉混乱，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），美国心理学家、计算机科学家，被称为互联网之父，他互动计算以及“巨型网络”的构想成为互联网的种子；Douglas Engelbart: 道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特（1925—2013），美国发明家，最广为人知的是他发明了鼠标。他也是人机交互的先锋，开发了超文本系统、网络计算机以及图形用户界面；ultimately: 最后，根本上；augmentation: 加强，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:〈计〉按双态键，这里指同时操作；browser:〈计〉浏览器；Skype: Skype网络电话，一款网络语音沟通工具。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: 持续的，持久的；degrade: 降级，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……影响的，对……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: 据称，据推测。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: 促进，推进；switch off: 关掉，切断。Some people turn to caffeine or Adderall as an aid to concentration,25. caffeine: 咖啡因；Adderall: 安非他明，一种治疗注意力缺失、多动症等疾病的药物。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: 即将发生的，临近的。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: 从头开始，重新地；purposely: 故意地，有目的性地；minimize: 使……减至最少，使……缩到最小。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，状态；chore: 日常零星工作，杂活。In the work modes, the machine would do what it could to keep you on track29. on track: 保持轨道，保持在正确方向上。, 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: 知晓的，觉察到的；eliminate: 消除，根除；beep: 嘟嘟声，哔哔声；bouncing icon:跳来跳去（以吸引注意力）的图标；pop-up window: 弹出式窗口。

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: 妨碍，阻碍。. 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.