玩iPad长大的一代怎样学会交际和独处？

玩iPad长大的一代怎样学会交际和独处?

I recently watched my sister perform an act of magic.

最近，我目睹了姐姐表演魔术。

We were sitting in a restaurant, trying to have a conversation, but her children, 4-year-old Willow and 7-year-old Luca, would not stop fighting. The arguments — over a fork, or who had more water in a glass — were unrelenting.

我们坐在一家餐馆里，试图交谈，可是她4岁的孩子薇洛(Willow)和7岁的孩子卢卡(Luca)不肯停止争执。他们不屈不挠地就一把叉子、以及谁杯子里的水更多吵来吵去。

Like a magician quieting a group of children by pulling a rabbit out of a hat, my sister reached into her purse and produced two shiny Apple iPads, handing one to each child. Suddenly, the two were quiet. Eerily so. They sat playing games and watching videos, and we continued with our conversation.

就像从一顶帽子里拽出只兔子，让一群孩子安静下来的魔术师，我的姐姐把手伸进手包，拿出两个闪亮的苹果iPad，给两个孩子人手一个。他们突然就静了下来。那场景非常诡异。他们坐着打游戏、看视频，而我们则继续交谈。

After our meal, as we stuffed the iPads back into their magic storage bag, my sister felt slightly guilty.

吃完饭之后，我们把iPad放回神奇的储存袋里，此时，我的姐姐感到有点内疚。

“I don’t want to give them the iPads at the dinner table, but if it keeps them occupied for an hour so we can eat in peace, and more importantly not disturb other people in the restaurant, I often just hand it over,” she told me. Then she asked: “Do you think it’s bad for them? I do worry that it is setting them up to think it’s O.K. to use electronics at the dinner table in the future.”

“我不想在餐桌上给他们iPad，可是，假如它能让他们在一个小时里心无旁骛，以便我们可以安静地吃饭，更重要的是，假如它能避免他们打扰餐馆里的其他人，那么我常常就会把iPad给他们。”她对我说。然后她问道，“你觉得这么做对他们有害吗?我真的担心，这会让他们认定，以后可以随便在餐桌上使用电子产品。”

I did not have an answer, and although some people might have opinions, no one has a true scientific understanding of what the future might hold for a generation raised on portable screens.

我没有答案，尽管一些人可以能有自己的看法，可是，没有人真正科学地研究过，从小用着便携屏幕长大的一代的未来如何。

“We really don’t know the full neurological effects of these technologies yet,” said Dr. Gary Small, director of the Longevity Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of “iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind.” “Children, like adults, vary quite a lot, and some are more sensitive than others to an abundance of screen time.”

洛杉矶加利福尼亚大学(University of California)寿命中心(Longevity Center)主任、《大脑革命：数字时代如何改变了人们的大脑和行为》(iBrain: Surviving the Technological Alteration of the Modern Mind)一书的作者盖瑞·斯默尔(Gary Small)博士说，“我们真的还不了解这些技术产生的所有神经学影响。儿童和成年人一样，存在很大的个体差异，有些人对长时间使用电子屏幕的影响更敏感。”

But Dr. Small says we do know that the brain is highly sensitive to stimuli, like iPads and smartphone screens, and if people spend too much time with one technology, and less time interacting with people like parents at the dinner table, that could hinder the development of certain communications skills.

不过，斯默尔博士说，我们的确知道，大脑对iPad和智能手机屏幕等刺激物高度敏感，如果人们在一个科技产品上花去过多的时间，而更少地与其他人互动，如餐桌旁的父母，那可能会阻碍某种交流技能的发展。

So will a child who plays with crayons at dinner rather than a coloring application on an iPad be a more socialized person?

那么，一个在吃饭时玩蜡笔的儿童，会比一个在iPad上玩着色应用软件的儿童有更强的社交能力吗?

Ozlem Ayduk, an associate professor in the Relationships and Social Cognition Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, said children sitting at the dinner table with a print book or crayons were not as engaged with the people around them, either. “There are value-based lessons for children to talk to the people during a meal,” she said. “It’s not so much about the iPad versus nonelectronics.”

加州大学伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)人际关系与社会认知实验室(Relationships and Social Cognition Lab)助理教授厄兹莱姆·艾杜克(Ozlem Ayduk)说，拿着一本书或蜡笔坐在餐桌边的儿童同样也不会和周围的人互动。她说，“在就餐时让儿童和他人说话，有时会是一种宝贵的学习过程。这和是 iPad还是非电子物品没有太大关系。”

Parents who have little choice but to hand over their iPad can at least control what a child does on those devices.

在没有选择的情况下迫不得已地把iPad交给孩子的父母，至少可以控制一个孩子利用此类设备干些什么。

A report published last week by the Millennium Cohort Study, a long-term study group in Britain that has been following 19,000 children born in 2000 and 2001, found that those who watched more than three hours of television, videos or DVDs a day had a higher chance of conduct problems, emotional symptoms and relationship problems by the time they were 7 than children who did not. The study, of a sample of 11,000 children, found that children who played video games — often age-appropriate games — for the same amount of time did not show any signs of negative behavioral changes by the same age.

上周，一个曾追踪2000年和2001年诞生的1.9万名婴儿的长期性英国研究组织“千禧世代研究”(Millennium Cohort Study)发布的一份报告发现，到这些儿童7岁时，那些在一天内看电视、视频或DVD超过三小时的儿童，比不曾这么做的儿童更有可能出现行为问题、情感症状和人际关系问题。这项研究对1.1万名儿童进行了采样，发现玩符合其年龄段的电子游戏达同样时长的儿童，在7岁时却没有展示出任何负面行为变化的迹象。

Which brings us back to the dinner table with my niece and nephew. While they sat happily staring into those shiny screens, they were not engaged in any type of conversation, or staring off into space thinking, as my sister and I did as children when our parents were talking. And that is where the risks are apparent.

这就回到了那次有我的外甥女和外甥在座的晚餐。当他们愉快地坐在那里，盯着光亮的屏幕时，他们没有参与任何谈话，也没有盯着某个空间进行思考，完全不像我和姐姐小时候父母谈话时所做的那样。这正是明显的风险所在。

“Conversations with each other are the way children learn to have conversations with themselves, and learn how to be alone,” said Sherry Turkle, a professor of science, technology and society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of the book “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” “Learning about solitude and being alone is the bedrock of early development, and you don’t want your kids to miss out on that because you’re pacifying them with a device.”

麻省理工学院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)科学、技术和社会研究教授、《一起孤独：我们为何对科技期望更多而对彼此期望更少》(Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other)一书的作者谢里·特克尔(Sherry Turkle)说，“相互间的交谈是儿童学习和自己对话的途径，也是他们学习如何独处的途径。了解寂寞和独处是早期发育的根基，因为要让他们安静下来就把这种设备塞给他们，可不是一件好事。”

Ms. Turkle has interviewed parents, teenagers and children about the use of gadgets during early development, and says she fears that children who do not learn real interactions, which often have flaws and imperfections, will come to know a world where perfect, shiny screens give them a false sense of intimacy without risk.

特克尔曾就个人在早期发育阶段使用电子设备的问题采访过父母、青少年和儿童。她说，现实里的互动往往存在缺陷和瑕疵，她担心，不学习现实里的互动的儿童，将只会认识一个完美光亮的屏幕给他们带来的没有风险、充满虚假亲密感的世界。