草垛罗海灵现代文阅读:在睡觉的时候，还是远离手机吧！

Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a bestselling author whose books include "Late Edition: A Love Story" and "When We Get To Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams."

(CNN) -- "I won't even sleep in the same room with them."

编者按：CNN的撰稿人Bob Greene是一位畅销书作家，他最近刚出版的书是：《一个爱的故事》和《当我们开始在城市中游荡：追求摇摆、友谊和梦想的路上穿行美国》，他的名言是：我绝不在有手机的房间里睡觉。    

A fellow named Daniel Sieberg was telling me his hard-and-fast rule for getting through the night.

一个叫Daniel Sieberg的同事介绍了他看似有些苛刻，但又可以快速完成的睡前准备。  

He takes all of his digital devices -- laptops, tablets, cellphones, anything portable that has a screen -- to another room before he turns off the light. He has come to terms with the fact that the technological gadgets that have so thoroughly insinuated themselves into our lives can become addictive.  

在他熄灯睡觉前，将所有的数码产品:手提电脑、平片机和手机，任何带有屏幕的便携设备带到另外一个房间。他认为这些电子产品占用了我们生命的极大部分，更会令人产生心理依赖。  

So, when it's time for slumber, he locks them out. He won't even let his cellphone charge overnight in the bedroom:  

所以一到睡眠时间，他就会把这些东西赶出卧室。他甚至不会在自己睡觉的时候，在卧室给手机充电。  

"If it's there, I would have the temptation to turn it on and check it."

“如果手机在卧室的话，我会忍不住把手机打开查看消息。”

We have learned to celebrate, even revere, the wireless gadgets we carry around and the inventors who bring them to us; the response to the death of Steve Jobs this month was emblematic of how important our do-it-all phones, our computers, our tablets and related digital devices have become. We say that the technology has changed life as we used to know it.  

我们开始去庆祝，甚至尊崇我们身边的移动设备和它们的发明者；人们对乔布斯逝去的回应成了一个标志性事件，这让我们意识到，我们常用的手机、电脑等数码产品对我们来说是如此之重要。我们甚至说科技改变了我们固有的生活方式。  

But how much is too much?

我们是不是对数码产品产生了过度的依赖？

And, more to the point: How many of us have the nagging feeling that we are somehow unable to disconnect -- that the electronic devices we own have begun to own us?

对于这点，我们更要思考的是：我们之中会有多少人因设备“无法连接”而变得急躁不安，是电它们占用了我们，还是我们拥有它们？

There is an instinct to treat the subject whimsically: "Land o'Goshen, Ma, those kids are walking down the street staring at their cellphone screens." It's as if any criticism of what the digital age has done to society brands the person raising the questions as backward, afraid of change, irrationally wedded to outmoded ways.  

很多人本能地把这看做一件不可思议的事情：“天啊,  现在的孩子已经到了走在路上眼睛都盯着手机屏幕的地步了!”也有一些人会把那些批评数码产品改变社会的人标上落后、害怕改变，非理性拘泥于陈旧生活方式的标签。

So the addiction question is often one that people silently ask themselves. Shouldn't we be spending less time checking and rechecking our many screens, large and small, and more time taking part in what used to be regarded as real life? Is there something inherently wrong when people being separated from their phones, computers and tablets makes them feel nervous, irritable, tense -- in other words, when they begin to exhibit classic withdrawal symptoms?  

所以我们会经常会在心底暗自问自己一个问题：我们是否该少花些时间去刷各种各式各样，电脑、手机或者别的数码产品的屏幕，然后像过去一样为现实生活多花点儿时间？我们是否在天性的某些方面出了些问题，以至于我们和那些数码产品分离开时会变得紧张、易怒，换一种说法就是，我们什么时候开始出现这种经典的脱瘾症状？  

For guidance on this, I got in touch with Sieberg, who has given as much thought to the subject as anyone of whom I'm aware. A former CNN correspondent, he is a lecturer, writer and broadcaster on technology issues who, in his own life, became increasingly conscious of the unhealthy hold that digital devices can have. He wrote a book called "The Digital Diet" that argues persuasively that there can come a time in a person's life when he or she is a good candidate for technology detox.  

为此，我联系到Sieberg，他是所知道的所有人中对这个问题最为关心的人。Sieberg是前CNN通讯记者，他现在的身份是讲师、作家和科普人。在他的生活中，他持续关注人们对数码产品的不健康使用方式。他曾写了一本书“数码瘦身”劝说人们：会有一天，人们会主动申请参加数码戒瘾的治疗。  

I asked him if "addiction" is too strong a word to use in relation to devices that seem to hook their users emotionally, but not chemically.

"Unfortunately, the word 'addiction' has become overused," he said, and should not be trivialized. Addictions to illegal drugs, alcohol and prescription medication are grimly somber matters. But, he said, the idea of an addiction to digital devices is genuine and is not something that should be greeted with a sardonic wink.

“不幸的是，上瘾 这个词被滥用了。”他说，但是事实是不能被轻视的。人们对违禁药品、酒和药物治疗产生依赖是很严峻的事情。但是，他说，对数码产品上瘾这一说法是确实存在的，它不该被一笑了之。  

"One definition of 'addiction' is when other people and other activities in your life begin to suffer because of something you know you should cut back on, but don't," he said.  

“上瘾的定义是当别人或者一些活动，因为你所确知的某些原因，开始让你变得痛苦，你本该戒除，却对此无能为力，”他说。下面的一些例子，会让很多人很快地识别出来。  

Some of his examples are things that many people will instantly recognize:

-- The urge to pull out a cellphone even when someone you're with is in the midst of a conversation with you.

  --强烈地掏出手机的渴望，即使你处在和某人的谈话中。

-- Texting even while your child is telling you about his or her day at school, and realizing later that you can't remember the details of what your son or daughter has said to you.

-- Having the vague feeling that something hasn't really happened until you post it to Facebook or Twitter.

-- Feeling isolated and anxious if you are offline for an extended period of time.

-- Noticing that even when your family is all together in one room at home, each person is gazing at his or her own screen and tapping at a miniature keyboard.

"There are people who, even when they aren't using their digital devices, find themselves creating status updates or Twitter feeds in their heads while they are experiencing things," he said. "It's as if they have lost the ability to live in the moment, and have become conditioned to feeling that they have to instantly share it electronically while it is still going on."  

“甚至有一些人，在做一些别的事情时，都会在脑子里更新状态或者写推特，”他说，“这看似是他们失去了享受生命的能力，他们习惯于时时刻刻上传状态的感觉，却忘记了体验它们的存在。”  

Sieberg is hardly a guy stuck in some dust-covered, pre-technology past: He has always been among the first to own each new portable device, and he likes the many good things the digital experience can provide. But he realized -- when his wife would wake up in the middle of the night to see him, in bed, illuminated by the glow of one screen or another that he had decided to check one more time before he fell back asleep -- that something might need remedying.  

Sieberg曾经也差点儿成为一个沉迷于那些拥有垃圾外壳的前卫科技产品的人：他曾经也是第一批拥有最新手持设备的人，他也很喜欢那些数码产品带来的美好体验。但是他及时意识到了问题，当他的妻子经常要半夜醒来，看到他在床上被那些要被那些要在睡前，检查多遍的数码产品的屏幕照亮时—他意识到必须做出一些改变了。  

There is, he said, a feeling common among people who are digitally hooked that, when it's just them and the real world and no screen, they are somehow cast adrift, cut off: "It's a sense of, 'What am I missing?'" But in truth, a strong case can be made that when a person lives too many hours a day in the digital universe, that is when he or she is really missing something -- missing the things that are taking place in the flesh-and-blood world.  

他说，对于那些经常手持数码产品的人，当只有他们和这个世界存在，没有整天面对的屏幕时，有一种普遍的漂泊无依的感觉：它是一种怅然地，若有所失的感觉。但是事实是，如果一个人终日沉迷于网络，他或她就会真正失去一些东西—丢失的是在有血有肉的现实世界中的东西。  

Sieberg has a phrase for it: You know you're in trouble when "your footing in technology feels increasingly like quicksand."

And he has a piece of advice for all of us, regardless of how deep we feel we're sinking into that digital quicksand:  

Like him, we should consider locking all of those devices in another room at night. He promises that it makes a difference:  

 Sieberg对此有句名言：如果你无法自拔地沉迷这些科技产品中，它的危险不亚于你身陷于流沙之内。

他也奉劝大家一句;无论我们陷入科技的流沙有多深，像他一样，应该考虑把那些数码产品锁在另一个房间。这样做会有很好的效果：  

“还是好好睡觉吧！"