雙語財經新聞 第26期 52分鐘讓你徹底“下線”

If your online life is taking over your real life, it could be time to erase1 yourself from the internet.

如果你沉溺於網路生活，而忽略了現實世界，那你真該從網際網路隱退了。

A Dutch company has made a programme which can destroy all posts and personal information from your Facebook, Linkedln, MySpace and Twitter accounts. The advantage of the tastefully-named Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is its speed. Instead of spending nearly ten hours erasing things manually, you can go offline in just 52 minutes.

荷蘭一家公司最新研製出一款程式，可銷燬使用者在Facebook, Iinkedln, MySpace和Twitter賬戶中的所有帖子和個人資訊。這款名為“Web 2.0自殺機”的程 序以速度著稱。該軟體可在52分鐘內讓使用者徹底“下線”，而手工清除資訊耗時近10 小時。

Some 3,000 people have already used the free programme, with another 90,000 on the waiting list. You hand over2 your passwords and watchas your Tweets and Facebook friends disappear — until there’s just an empty screen. Last month, one of the country’s most eminent brain scientists warned that an obsesskm3 with social networking sites and computer games may be changing the way people’s minds work. Oxford University expert Susan Greenfield believes constant computer and internet use may be “rewiring the brain”，shortening attention spans, encouraging instant gratification and causing a loss of empathy.

約有3000名使用者已體驗了這款免費程式，另有9萬名使用者還處於申請階段。用 戶提交密碼即可看到Tweets和Facebook賬戶內好友消失,直至清屏。荷蘭一位著名 腦部科學家上月提醒稱，沉溺於社交網站和電腦遊戲可能改變人的思維方式。牛津 大學專家蘇珊?格林菲爾德認為，持續使用電腦和網路會“重灌大腦”、使人注意力 不集中、鼓勵“即時滿足”、並使人喪失與他人共鳴的能力o

She said: “For me, this is almost as important as climate change. Whilst of course it doesn’t threaten the existence of the planet like climate change, I think the quality of our existence is threatened and the kind of people we might be in the future. ” The neuroscientist believes technology may be behind the “alarming” rise in attention deficit hyperactivity4 disorder and the growth in the use of anti 一 hyperactivity drug Ritalin.

她說:“對我來說，這和氣候變化一樣重要。這當然不會像氣候變化那樣威脅地 球的生存，但我想這威脅到了人類的生活質量，以及人類的未來。”這位神經學家認 為,科技正是多動症患者人數及抗多動症藥物利他林使用量飆升的幕後黑手。

But Baroness Greenfield said that although benefits of playing computer games may include a higher IQ and better memory, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook may hamper empathy.

但格林菲爾德女爵稱，儘管玩電腦遊戲有可能提髙智商並增強記憶力，但 Twitter和Facebook等社交網站卻會阻礙人們之間的情感共鳴。

Using search engines to find facts may hinder our ability to learn, while computer games in which it is always possible to start again, may make us more reckless.

使用搜索引擎查詢資訊會阻礙我們的學習能力，總可以重新開始的電腦遊戲 會使人做事更魯莽。