VOA常速英语2014--迷恋于智能设备的现代人（在线收听）

Global Masses Become Infatuated With Gadgets 迷恋于智能设备的现代人

High-tech gadget shows draw throngs of excited consumers each year in the United States, Japan, Europe and the Arabian peninsula. Though many people are already surrounded with all kinds of smart electronic devices, some always need one more -- better and smarter than the previous one. VOA’s George Putic looks at the modern world’s infatuation with gadgets.

At electronic shows, visitors flock around the newest tablet computers, cameras, 3D television screens, even small robots, dreaming of taking one home.

在电子产品展上，参观者蜂拥围在最新的平板电脑、摄像机、3D电视屏幕，甚至小机器人面前，梦想能带一台回家。

Consumers spend hours waiting in lines and spend hundreds of dollars to be among the first to get the latest smart phone.

消费者排了几小时的队并花数百美元来成为最先拥有最新智能手机的一族。

The modern world seems to be infatuated with shiny expensive objects that keep us connected, help us navigate, record our thoughts and memorable events, and even talk to us. So infatuated, we no longer merely "own" our gadgets -- we have relationships with them, according to clinical psychologist and life transition therapist Francine Lederer.

现代社会似乎很迷恋各种闪亮昂贵的物品，这些东西让我们保持联通，帮助我们导航，记录我们的想法和难忘的事，甚至能对我们讲话。如此迷恋它们，我们不再只“拥有”这些设备，我们和它们建立了关系，临床心理学家兼生活过渡理疗师弗朗辛·莱德尔说。

“It’s a lot easier to have, right, a one-sided relationship with your computer, your phone, than it is with a live person. So that at the end of the day, you don’t need to worry about somebody being angry with you, you don’t need to worry about getting blamed for anything,” she said.

“很容易和电脑、手机建立单方面的关系，这比和活人建立关系更容易。所以最后你不用担心有人会对你生气，也无需担心因什么而受责备。”

Magical devices

Although having a thousand Facebook friends may be perceived as equivalent to having a thousand real, authentic friendships, Lederer said in reality it is not so.

尽管在脸书上有1000个好友可能也差不多意味着有1000份真正的友谊，莱德尔说事实上并非如此。

“It comes down to a lot of the internal stuff. How we feel about ourselves, our own sense of self-esteem, our self-worth, a lot of those things,” she said.

“这要归结于很多内在的东西，我们如何感知自己，我们的自尊感，自我价值感等很多东西。”

But gadgets are magical. They fascinate us the same way we are intrigued by a magician’s trick, said psychology professor at the University of the South Pacific, Robert Epstein.

但这些设备很神奇，它们像魔术师的魔棒一样令我们着迷，南太平洋大学心理教授罗伯特·爱普森说。

“If you don’t know how they’re doing it, that’s very fascinating and intriguing. But if they do it 10 times or 20 times or 100 times, it gets boring and you want something else. That’s why magicians do not repeat the same trick over and over again,” he said.

“如果你不知道其中的奥妙，那就很吸引人。但如果你玩了10次、20次或100次，你就感到厌倦，想找些新的东西玩。所以魔术师从不重复同一个魔术。”

Plugged in, isolated

Epstein, former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today magazine, said he is concerned that gadgets will take on a life of their own.

爱普森曾是《今日心理学杂志》的主编，他说他担心各种设备将具有它们自己的生命形式。

“All we’re seeing so far is a little bit of the so-called wearable technology that you might wear on your wrist or in your glasses, but we’re moving very rapidly, whether the public knows it or not, toward real biological interfaces so that the gadgets will be built into us to some extent,” he said.

“我们到目前看到的是开始出现所谓的可穿戴科技，可以戴在手腕上，或眼镜上，但我们移动得很快，不管公众知道与否，我们朝向的是真实的生物界面，所以这种设备也将在一定程度上成为我们的一部分。”

Lederer said the danger is that our dependence on electronic gadgets is increasingly being perceived as normal.

莱德尔说其中的危险是，我们对电子设备的依赖越来越被视为常态化。

“I think our society in a way, and the media, often times normalizes the extent to which we use these gadgets and phones, but the reality is, it’s really not healthy for us,” she said.

“我们的社会、媒体通常会以一定方式将我们使用设备和手机的情况正常化，但事实上是，这样对我们的健康真的不利。”

Scientists predict that gadgets with biological interfaces may be available within the next 20 years and, coupled with strong artificial intelligence, will be much smarter than today.

科学家预测具备生物界面的设备可能会在未来20年出现，并具备更强大的人工智能，比现在要智能得多。