有胆放下手机吗 · 李楠

关注微信公众号：为你读英语美文，获得更多图文资料 关注新浪微博：为你读英语美文，和我们交流互动 本期主播：李楠-香港理工大学博士在读 文章出处：Elite Daily《精英日报》 录制地点：香港 收听节目之前，想邀请你看一看腾讯大成网《视川》栏目出品的-2014年终特刊：《生活，被手机绑架》 （关注微信公众号：为你读英语美文， 查看本期节目图文） 今天，李楠为你读一篇文章， 听听一个没有手机却“坚强”活了一年半的人想告诉我们点什么？ I Went 16 Months Without A Cell Phone And My Life Was So Much Better 我度过一年半没有手机的日子，生活原来如此美妙 By Tom Grotewohl I’ve spent the last year and a half without a cell phone. You’re probably reacting to that line as if it read, “I’ve spent the last year and a half without breathing air.” Cell phones have become such a crucial part of our daily lives that most folks rely on them more than the majority of their organs. In fact, you can get your spleen removed and continue living a normal existence, but the same cannot be said of a cell phone. Without it, you cannot expect to have a job, a consistent network of friends or a GPS guiding you to your destination. For this last period of my life, I haven’t had those things because I’ve been traveling. I’ve been crossing borders too frequently to hold on to friends, and sleeping anywhere that offered a free bed or a bit of floor space. So I didn’t have to work. It’s what has allowed me to conduct this experiment. I recognize that this is not a lifestyle most people are seeking because for the reasons listed above/ it simply isn’t practical. Soon I will make my reentry into the world as a real human being and, though somewhat reluctantly, purchase a phone again. For now, though, I am a freak among my generation, and that gives me the valuable freak’s perspective. Allowing me to observe its role in our lives with more clarity than those who are pressing right up against the screen on your phone Listen up and I’ll share what I’ve learned: No.1 Being in two places at once means you aren’t anywhere. I’ve witnessed countless situations where this occurs, but here’s one in particular: I was in a restaurant eating vegetable fried rice, marveling at how, in Spain, even cheap Chinese food comes with a full bottle of delicious wine. Across the room from me was a couple on a dinner date. The guy had his phone smashed up against his cheek like he was trying to merge with it, yammering about a gig he had coming up while the girl across the table stared vacantly at her soggy egg rolls. When, at last, the call finished, the guy explained the conversation to his date as if she hadn’t just heard the whole thing. When he concluded his monologue, the phone rang again, and the same sequence repeated itself. And how many times have you seen this? When people pull their phones out in the middle of conversation in order to “send a quick text” or “look something up.”, I wonder how these people would react if, while they were talking to me, I pulled out a book and said, “Just a second,” and proceeded to leisurely read a few pages and then say, “Thanks for waiting, sorry about that.” Would they feel I was devaluing their presence in favor of a bit of reading, which obviously could wait until later? No. 2 Eye contact is the 21st century dodo. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, then we’ve boarded up those windows and the soul inside is wilting from lack of light. Walk down a busy street and you’ll notice that in the crowd, not a single set of eyes meets yours. More than likely you won’t notice because you, too, are staring at a screen. Within a few decades, I believe we’ll see a new medical condition/ where people can no longer prop their heads upright because spines will have ossified in such a way that necks arch permanently downward. Corporations will have to rent billboard space on the tops of shoes/ because no one looks at the sky anymore. Suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine that the soul mate is real. In every person’s life there is one moment in which his or her soul mate appears. What if this person passes you on the street and your eyes never meet because you were too busy looking at your phone? Cell phones have become cigarettes for the eyes. We’re so comfortable with them that necessity has replaced luxury, and our eyes feel naked and exposed without a screen to gaze upon. Dammit, man, look up! Look up while you’ve still got a neck to do it! Your phone’s an exact replica of millions of others, but every set of eyes is unique! 3. We’ve mistaken being alone for loneliness. Having a cell phone is like carrying your friends with you everywhere you go. Even if you aren’t conversing with your real friends, cell phones provide an endless supply of imaginary friends to distract you from yourself, in the form of rapid fire updates on the lives of celebrities, viral videos of people you’ll never meet. We’ve become so accustomed to this state that the second our phones run out of battery, coldness sweeps over us and we feel ourselves teetering over loneliness and despair, like an addict. Humans are social animals. It is normal to want to be surrounded by others; in fact, it’s necessary for our mental health. That’s why solitary confinement is the highest punishment. What makes humans unique is not sociality, but our ability to self-reflect. That’s why we can recognize ourselves in the mirror when other animals can’t. That’s why we can construct tools from nature and imagine ways of improving them, or why we’ve invented art, music and science. If we lose that time to be self-reflective, we will slowly see those things that make us human deteriorate. Along with it, our social lives will become increasingly shallow because without having time to find ourselves, there will be less about us that is actually worth sharing with others. A party today is a bunch of people on their screens not interacting, just being alone together. Then it’s an emptier, more chronic loneliness. That’s the irony: We use our phones to medicate our loneliness, but at the same time our phones are causing it. For most of us, life is a slot machine slideshow of streaming videos, news feeds, texts and tweets and pixelated twats. Then where is the time left to exist as ourselves? Remember that music is made not just of sound, but silence. And a painting without space to resonate in is impossible for the eyes to navigate. Set aside time to exist for yourself and no one else, for we can only learn to not be lonely through being alone. Hey, BTW just don’t forget your date across the table. He or she might become your husband and wife in the future. So take it serious, shut your phone and enjoy your date. Elite Daily 精英日报新闻网是一个介绍幽默、政治、娱乐、体育、理财等方面的媒体网站，他们号称是“Y一代之声”精英日报与一般的媒体不同他们追求的是让读者参与和讨论的方式，在内容上通过独特的方式来吸引大众的兴趣。 http://elitedaily.com/ 垫乐 Solstice by K391 Rise by John Dreamer 餐厅环境音 街道环境音 by 小森平 http://taira-komori.jpn.org/freesoundtw.html Fallen Skies by Isaac Shepard Dumb ways to die by Oliver Mcgill 主播|制作: 李楠，发行：永清 文字及垫乐归作者或版权方所有 图片源于网络 （你的生活被手机“绑架”了吗？关注微信公众号：为你读英语美文， 查看本期节目图文，一测便知） 为你读英语美文，Read English for You 微信公众号：为你读英语美文 官方新浪微博：@为你读英语美文 荔枝FM 搜索【为你读英语美文】收听