金融時報:在智能時代，我只希望手機“笨”一點

在智能時代，我只希望手機“笨”一點

我本想好好地讀本書，卻不由自主地拿出了手機。我努力讓自己相信，我只是上想谷歌查一些重要的資料，但三十分鐘過去了，我突然發(fā)現(xiàn)自己在刷Facebook和Twitter，已經(jīng)完全忘了原本要做什么……“手機依賴癥”并不是一種偶然現(xiàn)象。開發(fā)者們使盡渾身解數(shù)將用戶玩弄于股掌之中，他們是如何得逞的？我們又該怎么辦？

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

scroll[skr??l] vt./vi.卷動，翻滾

brazen['bre?zn] adj.厚顏無恥的

persuasive[p?'swe?s?v] adj.有說服力的

neuroscientist[?n?ro?sa??nt?st] n.神經(jīng)學(xué)家

explicit[?k'spl?s?t] adj.明確的,詳述的

dopamine['do?p?mi?n] n.多巴胺

antidote['æntid??t] n.解毒劑，解藥

incentivize[?n'sent?va?z] v.刺激，激勵

Why a dumb phone is a smart move(683 words)

By Aime Williams

I’ve recently found myself wondering if I could do without Google Maps. It is, I think, the only app on my phone I’d really miss were I to swap my smartphone for a “dumb” one that handles only calls and text messages.

Why am I thinking about this? It’s because every time I try to read a book, I end up picking up my phone instead. I convince myself that I need to google something, something important, and, 30 minutes later, I’m scrolling through Facebook or Twitter with all sense of time and purpose lost. I’ve taken to turning off my phone, but then I turn it back on. I’ve tried hiding all my colourful apps in little folders, but that doesn’t really work. I keep interrupting my own train of thought in order to do something that I don’t consciously want to do.

This is not accidental. Developers have become ever more brazen in their attempts to keep us hooked on our smartphones. Some of them speak in the language of addiction and behavioural psychology, though most prefer the term “persuasive tech”. In itself, persuasive tech is not a new idea — an academic named BJ Fogg has been running classes from a “persuasive tech lab” at Stanford since the late 1990s. But as smartphone ownership has rocketed and social-media sites have been born, persuasive tech has vastly expanded its reach.

One company, Dopamine Labs — named for the chemical released in the reward centre of the brain — offers a service to tech businesses wanting to “keep users engaged”. Founded by two neuroscientists-turned-programmers, it explicitly talks about using artificial intelligence to modify apps and release dopamine hits to “surprise and hook each user”. Loosely translated, in case it’s not terrifying enough: robots are trying to alter your brain chemistry to make you spend more time doing something you don’t want to do.

Dopamine Labs is interesting, though, because it also offers an antidote service — an app that tries to help users regain control.

Founder Ramsay Brown tells me he wants people to understand that “their thoughts and feelings are on the table as things that can be controlled and designed”. He thinks there should be more conversation around the persuasive power of the technologies being used. “We believe everyone has a right to cognitive liberty, and to build the kind of mind they want to live in,” he says.

Dopamine Labs’ app — Space — springs from the idea that technology can help us change the way we use it, by encouraging us to resist the lure of the smartphone and spend our time online more productively.

There are two main ways the tech world seeks to help us regain our self-control. Space opts for the “mindfulness” approach, asking us to breathe slowly for a few seconds before it loads an app. The alternative is the cold turkey option — which seems appealing, though it comes with obvious practical problems.

The poster child of the resistance movement against addictive apps is former Google “design ethicist” Tristan Harris. He thinks the power to change the system lies not with app developers but with the hardware providers. In 2014, Harris founded “Time Well Spent”, a group that campaigns for more ethical design practices among developers. When I ask him about this, he drops in phrases such as “brain hacking” — which seem extreme until you remember that there’s a company called Dopamine Labs.

Any tech business that relies on advertising revenues is incentivised to hold its users online for as long as possible, Harris says. This means apps are specifically designed to keep us in them. Apple, on the other hand, wants to sell phones but doesn’t have a revenue stream so rigidly correlated to the amount of time its customers spend online. Harris hopes that companies like Apple could use their influence to boost more ethically designed apps.

While I wait for Apple to sort this out, I find myself longing for something called a “Light Phone”, a credit-card-sized handset that does absolutely nothing but make and receive calls. Price tag? $150. Seems expensive. But the company’s website is very persuasive.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.According to the author, what is the main reason that we are becoming so addicted to our smartphones？

A. Because people's behaviours are easy to be controlled and designed through apps.

B. Because developers make various attempts to keep us hooked on our smartphones.

C. Because apps are designed to change attitudes or behaviors of users through coercion.

D. Because apps like Google Maps have became a necessary part in our daily life.

答案(1)

2.Dopamine Labs's founder believes that ____.

A. People's thoughts and feelings have been controlled and designed by tech businesses.

B. Persuasive technologies are dangerous since they deprive people of their cognitive liberty.

C. We should be more careful about the persuasive power of the technologies being used.

D. Every can build the kind of mind they want to live in with the help of persuasive technologies.

答案(2)

3.What is “Time Well Spent” according to the article？

A. A company that offers a service to tech businesses wanting to keep users engaged.

B. A group that campaigns for more ethical design practices among developers.

C. An academic that has been running classes from a “persuasive tech lab” at Stanford.

D. An app that helps us to resist the lure of smartphone and spend our time more productively.

答案(3)

4.What is this passage mainly about？

A. Technical companies control their costumers' thoughts and feelings by altering their brain chemistry.

B. A “Light Phone” that handles only calls and text messages is beneficial to our mental health.

C. We should be aware of persuasive technologies on smartphone which is weakening our self-control.

D. Companies like Apple could use their influence to boost more ethically designed apps.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：B.Because developers make various attempts to keep us hooked on our smartphones.

解釋：我們越來越離不開手機，這一現(xiàn)象并不令人意外。開發(fā)者們一直想方設(shè)法讓我們放不下手機，他們的野心越來越不加掩飾。

(2) 答案：C.We should be more careful about the persuasive power of the technologies being used.

解釋：Ramsay Brown認為人們應(yīng)該就使用勸誘性技術(shù)的問題進行更多的討論。

(3) 答案：B.A group that campaigns for more ethical design practices among developers.

解釋：“Time Well Spent”是一個呼吁開發(fā)者在開發(fā)應(yīng)用時更加注重倫理道德的組織。

(4) 答案：C.We should be aware of persuasive technologies on smartphone which is weakening our self-control.

解釋：這篇文章講述了人們?yōu)楹螣o法抵御手機應(yīng)用的誘惑，并介紹了為擺脫勸誘性技術(shù)而做出的努力。