社交媒体让青少年处于“重大心理健康危机”的边缘

We know from rafts of research that isolation is bad for us. It's associated with a clutch of diseases including depression, high blood pressure and heart disease. And yet teenagers pursue isolation, not in the sense of having no family or friends, but in the sense of walling themselves off from real social contact.

从大量的研究中我们得知：孤独对我们是不利的。孤独与一系列疾病相关，包括抑郁症、高血压和心脏疾病。但青少年却追求孤独，这里指的并不是没有家庭或朋友，而是指他们试图脱离真正的社会接触。

And what do teenagers use to build those walls? They use the device of our times - a screen. Screens of all kinds. In whatever form, screens are addictive. And addictive from an early age. Research has shown that given the chance, six-month-old babies prefer screens to real human faces.

青少年又是如何建起这道心墙的呢？他们使用了我们这个时代的设备--一个屏幕。各种各样的屏幕。不管是何种形式，屏幕都会让他们上瘾。而且很小的时候就会上瘾。研究已表明：如果有机会，6个月大的宝宝都会选择屏幕而不是真正的人脸。

Hand in hand with this addiction to screens we are seeing an explosion of teenage mental health problems. Social media claims to be inclusive, keeping you connected. But it's not. It isolates you from real people. Screens have even been described as being toxic for teenagers .

从对屏幕的喜好中，我们看到了青少年心理健康问题的爆发。社交媒体声称是包容性的，能让你与他人保持联系。但实际上却没有。它将你和真人隔绝开。人们甚至将屏幕描述为对青少年有毒。

Psychologist Jean Twenge, a professor at San Diego State University, believes today's teenagers are "on the brink" of a major mental health crisis and pleads, "do anything that doesn't involve a screen".

圣地亚哥州立大学的心理学家让·特恩戈恩认为，当今的青少年正处于重大心理健康危机的边缘，并呼吁他们"要做不与屏幕相关的事情"。

The problem is, she claims, children born between 1995 and 2017 have grown up with a smartphone in their hands, and it has "changed every aspect" of their lives. The number of teenagers who actually see their friends frequently has dropped by more than 40% since 2000.

她说，问题是：生于1995至2017年的孩子是伴随手中的智能手机成长的，而这"改变了他们生活的方方面面"。自2000年以来，真正和朋友经常碰面的孩子已经减少了40%。

In 2017, only 56% of 17-year-olds went on a date, down from 85% for Generation X-ers. Modern teenagers are slower to learn to drive, or earn money, and spend more time in the parental home. They're "on their phone, in their room, alone and often distressed", she says. Some commentators, however, say we should be encouraging our children to spend more time online.

2017年，17岁的青少年中，只有56%的人会和朋友约会，而20世纪60年代至70年代出生的美国人在青少年时期却有85%的人会和朋友约会。现代的青少年学车、挣钱的速度更慢，他们会花更多的时间呆在父母家中。他们"在自己的房间里玩着手机，一个人抑郁着，"她说道。然而，有些评论员说我们应该鼓励孩子在网上花更多的时间。

Robert Hannigan, former director of GCHQ, said in August that Britain is desperately short of engineers and computer scientists, and urged children to develop cyber skills to compete in the digital economy.

国家通信总局的前局长罗伯特·汉尼根于八月说道，英国极其缺乏工程师和计算机科学家，并督促孩子们开发网络技巧，以在数字经济中竞争。

I'm not the first to say that social media is inferior to real human contact, and harms mental health. Studies show teens who spend three hours a day online are 35% more likely to have a risk factor for suicide. The suicide rate among girls aged 12 to 14 has tripled in a decade.

第一个认为社交媒体不如真人接触并损害心理健康的人并不是我。研究表明每天上网3小时的青少年自杀的风险可能要高35%。过去十年，12至14岁自杀的女孩儿涨了三倍。