社交媒體的“焦慮黑洞”

Eight months before the US election, the Washington Post reported that psychologists and massage therapists had observed a new flavour of stress in their clients — “Trump anxiety”. One masseuse described clients lying on the massage table ranting about the presidential candidate. “It stresses me out to listen to it,” she said. “I can’t give you a good massage if I’m grabbing your shoulders like Donald Trump’s orange face.”

在距美國大選還有8個(gè)月的時(shí)候，《華盛頓郵報(bào)》(Washington Post)報(bào)道稱，心理學(xué)家和按摩治療師發(fā)現(xiàn)他們的客戶出現(xiàn)了一種新的壓力——“特朗普焦慮”。一名按摩師描述了躺在按摩臺(tái)上的顧客怒罵特朗普的情形。她說：“聽到這些讓我倍感壓力。如果我抓著你的肩膀就像抓著唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的橙色臉，我就無法好好按摩。”

Then a group of American therapists published an anti-Trump “manifesto” because they wanted to protect the wellbeing of their clients. In it they argued his public rhetoric was normalising what therapists work against — “the tendency to blame others in our lives for our personal fears and insecurities and then battle these others instead of taking the healthier but more difficult path of self-awareness and self-responsibility”.

隨后一群美國治療師發(fā)表了反特朗普“宣言”，因?yàn)樗麄兿胍Ｗo(hù)客戶的幸福感。他們在宣言中辯稱，特朗普的公開言論等于是在“正?；?rdquo;治療師們要治療的東西——“把我們的個(gè)人擔(dān)憂和不安全感歸咎于生活中的別人的傾向，然后與這些別人計(jì)較，而不是走上自我意識(shí)和自我責(zé)任這條更為健康但也更為艱難的道路”。

This week the American Psychological Association’s report, Stress in America: Coping with Change echoed the masseuse’s and therapists’ observations. It reported the first significant increase in anxiety since the national survey was launched 10 years ago. More than half (57 per cent) of Americans polled in January said they were stressed about the current political climate and 66 per cent were anxious about the future of the nation.

美國心理學(xué)會(huì)(APA)最近發(fā)表的報(bào)告《美國的壓力：應(yīng)對變化》(Stress in America: Coping with Change)呼應(yīng)了按摩師和治療師的觀察心得。該報(bào)告稱，美國社會(huì)焦慮感出現(xiàn)顯著上升，這是自10年前開展全國調(diào)查以來的首次。在今年1月受訪的美國人當(dāng)中，逾半數(shù)(57%)表示當(dāng)前政治氣候讓他們感到壓力，66%對國家的未來感到焦慮。

While Democrats were more likely to report the outcome of the election as a source of worry (72 per cent, compared to only 26 per cent of Republicans), a majority of Republicans (59 per cent) said the future of the nation was a significant source of stress. These findings would resonate with political blogger Andrew Sullivan, who wrote recently that at the “core of the administration of the most powerful country on earth, there is, instead, madness”.

盡管民主黨人更有可能報(bào)告大選結(jié)果是憂慮來源(有這種想法的民主黨人比例為72%，而共和黨人的比例僅為26%)，但大多數(shù)共和黨人(59%)表示，國家的未來是壓力的重要源頭。這些結(jié)論將會(huì)引起政治博客作者安德魯•沙利文(Andrew Sullivan)的共鳴，他最近寫道，“地球上最強(qiáng)大國家政府的核心有一些瘋子”。

Author Pankaj Mishra has written that this is the “age of anger”. But I suspect many are experiencing an age of anxiety.

作家潘卡吉•米什拉(Pankaj Mishra)寫道，當(dāng)今是“憤怒的時(shí)代”。但我懷疑，許多人經(jīng)歷的是一個(gè)焦慮的時(shí)代。

In Britain, too, there has been an uptick in worry reported by the Office for National Statistics. It suggested that an “increase in anxiety in this period compared with last year could be associated with the uncertainties surrounding governance, the economy and global security”.

在英國，英國國家統(tǒng)計(jì)署(ONS)報(bào)告的憂慮感同樣出現(xiàn)了上升。該機(jī)構(gòu)提出，“在此期間的焦慮感與上年相比上升，可能與圍繞管治、經(jīng)濟(jì)和全球安全的不確定性有關(guān)”。

Last year, a clinic treating mental health issues among City workers observed an increase in referrals spurred by post-Brexit uncertainty, unsure whether they would be moving country or if they might lose their jobs. No doubt many will see this as the ultimate in “snowflake hysteria” — at last they are suffering some of the insecurity that others felt in the wake of the financial crisis.

去年，一家治療倫敦金融城員工精神健康問題的診所發(fā)現(xiàn)，英國退歐后的不確定性引發(fā)轉(zhuǎn)診人數(shù)增加，這些人不確定自己是否要遷至另一個(gè)國家，或者是否會(huì)丟掉工作。許多人無疑會(huì)認(rèn)為這是終極的“雪花歇斯底里”——金融業(yè)人士終于感受到了其他人在金融危機(jī)之后感受到的一部分不安全感。

There are legitimate and deeply held fears about the political and economic direction of these countries but the internet has stoked anxiety. There are the organs of outrage, like Breitbart and Westmonster, and the growth of fake news stories that feed off fear and anger. And at a time when even facts can be described as “alternative”, what certainties can people latch on to? Is night dark, and day light?

對美英的政治和經(jīng)濟(jì)走向深感擔(dān)憂是合情合理的，但互聯(lián)網(wǎng)加劇了焦慮。Breitbart和Westmonster這些網(wǎng)站煽動(dòng)著人們的憤怒，同時(shí)利用恐懼和憤怒心理的假新聞泛濫。在一個(gè)就連事實(shí)也可能被描述為“替代”的時(shí)代，人們還能指望什么確定性?黑夜是黑的，白天是亮的嗎?

Then there is the breathless pace of news. The tech writer Clive Thompson recently noted that social media conditions you “to treat everything like a crisis . . . There’s an inherent crisis mentality that flows out of instant, of-the-minute updates”.

還有就是新聞驚人的傳播速度?？萍甲骷铱死f•湯普森(Clive Thompson)最近指出，社交媒體讓你習(xí)慣于“把所有事情都當(dāng)成危機(jī)來對待……實(shí)時(shí)更新的新聞催生了內(nèi)在的危機(jī)意識(shí)”。

Last week, an American university professor I had arranged to talk to over the phone emailed to ask if I could call him earlier, to rescue him from the Twitter hole he had slipped into. “Thank God,” said the man with whom I had never spoken. It wasn’t just the politics of his own country that had him so worried — it was everything and everywhere.

最近，與我電話約談的一位美國大學(xué)教授給我發(fā)郵件，問我能否早些給他打電話，把他從他深陷的Twitter黑洞中救出來。這位此前從未與我交談過的男子說道：“感謝上帝”。不僅是美國的政治讓他如此焦慮——所有國家的所有事情都讓他焦慮。

Social media is seen as problematic because it allows like-minded people to congregate in bubbles, ignorant of contrary views. Yet that is only partly true. It also allows you to see fragments of a world you might never have seen, typically delivered by a tsunami of outrage. Without Twitter, most liberals would never have heard of Katie Hopkins, the Mail Online columnist and professional troll.

社交媒體之所以被認(rèn)為有問題，是因?yàn)樗層^點(diǎn)相近的人們聚集在泡沫中，對相反的觀點(diǎn)充耳不聞。然而，這只說對了一部分。它還讓你看到此前從未看到的世界的碎片，這些碎片通常是由海嘯般的憤怒帶來的。如果沒有Twitter，大多數(shù)自由派人士將永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)聽說凱蒂•霍普金斯(Katie Hopkins)，后者是郵報(bào)在線(Mail Online)的專欄作家，“專職”發(fā)布挑釁的內(nèi)容。

The potency of the internet is that it is everywhere. Facebook allows you to see your friend’s new baby in Tokyo. But it is also responsible for bringing you the mad and the ugly. The world is made smaller by technology. And the anxiety looms larger.

互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的威力在于它無處不在。Facebook讓你看到遠(yuǎn)在東京的朋友剛剛誕生的寶寶，但它也給你帶來瘋狂和丑陋的內(nèi)容。技術(shù)讓世界變得更小了，也讓人們的焦慮感更強(qiáng)烈了。

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