社交媒体的“焦虑黑洞”
在距美国大选还有8个月的时候，《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)报道称，心理学家和按摩治疗师发现他们的客户出现了一种新的压力——“特朗普焦虑”。一名按摩师描述了躺在按摩台上的顾客怒骂特朗普的情形。她说：“听到这些让我倍感压力。如果我抓着你的肩膀就像抓着唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)的橙色脸，我就无法好好按摩。”
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”.
随后一群美国治疗师发表了反特朗普“宣言”，因为他们想要保护客户的幸福感。他们在宣言中辩称，特朗普的公开言论等于是在“正常化”治疗师们要治疗的东西——“把我们的个人担忧和不安全感归咎于生活中的别人的倾向，然后与这些别人计较，而不是走上自我意识和自我责任这条更为健康但也更为艰难的道路”。
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.
美国心理学会(APA)最近发表的报告《美国的压力：应对变化》(Stress in America: Coping with Change)呼应了按摩师和治疗师的观察心得。该报告称，美国社会焦虑感出现显著上升，这是自10年前开展全国调查以来的首次。在今年1月受访的美国人当中，逾半数(57%)表示当前政治气候让他们感到压力，66%对国家的未来感到焦虑。
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”.
尽管民主党人更有可能报告大选结果是忧虑来源(有这种想法的民主党人比例为72%，而共和党人的比例仅为26%)，但大多数共和党人(59%)表示，国家的未来是压力的重要源头。这些结论将会引起政治博客作者安德鲁•沙利文(Andrew Sullivan)的共鸣，他最近写道，“地球上最强大国家政府的核心有一些疯子”。
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)写道，当今是“愤怒的时代”。但我怀疑，许多人经历的是一个焦虑的时代。
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”.
在英国，英国国家统计署(ONS)报告的忧虑感同样出现了上升。该机构提出，“在此期间的焦虑感与上年相比上升，可能与围绕管治、经济和全球安全的不确定性有关”。
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，一家治疗伦敦金融城员工精神健康问题的诊所发现，英国退欧后的不确定性引发转诊人数增加，这些人不确定自己是否要迁至另一个国家，或者是否会丢掉工作。许多人无疑会认为这是终极的“雪花歇斯底里”——金融业人士终于感受到了其他人在金融危机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?
对美英的政治和经济走向深感担忧是合情合理的，但互联网加剧了焦虑。Breitbart和Westmonster这些网站煽动着人们的愤怒，同时利用恐惧和愤怒心理的假新闻泛滥。在一个就连事实也可能被描述为“替代”的时代，人们还能指望什么确定性?黑夜是黑的，白天是亮的吗?
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”.
还有就是新闻惊人的传播速度。科技作家克利韦•汤普森(Clive Thompson)最近指出，社交媒体让你习惯于“把所有事情都当成危机来对待……实时更新的新闻催生了内在的危机意识”。
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，与我电话约谈的一位美国大学教授给我发邮件，问我能否早些给他打电话，把他从他深陷的Twitter黑洞中救出来。这位此前从未与我交谈过的男子说道：“感谢上帝”。不仅是美国的政治让他如此焦虑——所有国家的所有事情都让他焦虑。
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.
社交媒体之所以被认为有问题，是因为它让观点相近的人们聚集在泡沫中，对相反的观点充耳不闻。然而，这只说对了一部分。它还让你看到此前从未看到的世界的碎片，这些碎片通常是由海啸般的愤怒带来的。如果没有Twitter，大多数自由派人士将永远不会听说凯蒂•霍普金斯(Katie Hopkins)，后者是邮报在线(Mail Online)的专栏作家，“专职”发布挑衅的内容。
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.
互联网的威力在于它无处不在。Facebook让你看到远在东京的朋友刚刚诞生的宝宝，但它也给你带来疯狂和丑陋的内容。技术让世界变得更小了，也让人们的焦虑感更强烈了。
emma.jacobs@ft.com 译者/邹策
