Are Smartphones Turning Us Into Bad Samaritans?
In late September, on a crowded commuter train in San Francisco, a man shot and killed 20-year-old student Justin Valdez. As security footage shows, before the gunman fired, he waved around his .45 caliber pistol and at one point even pointed it across the aisle. Yet no one on the crowded train noticed because they were so focused on their smartphones and tablets. 'These weren't concealed movements -- the gun is very clear,' District Attorney George Gascon later told the Associated Press. 'These people are in very close proximity with him, and nobody sees this. They're just so engrossed, texting and reading and whatnot. They're completely oblivious of their surroundings.'
9月下旬，一名男子在旧金山一列拥挤的通勤列车上枪杀了20岁的学生贾斯廷?瓦尔迪兹(Justin Valdez)。监控录像显示男子在开枪之前拿着他的点45口径手枪晃来晃去，甚至一度指向过道的另一侧。然而拥挤的列车上没有人注意到他，因为大家都在专心地玩智能手机和平板电脑。地方检察长乔治?加斯康(George Gascon)后来对美联社(Associated Press)说：“这些动作都不是偷偷摸摸的，枪非常清楚。这些人跟他挨得很近，结果谁都没有看到。他们发短信、读电子书等等，实在是太投入了。他们对周围的一切都浑然不觉。”
Another recent attack, on a blind man walking down the street in broad daylight in Philadelphia, garnered attention because security footage later revealed that many passersby ignored the assault and never called 911. Commenting to a local radio station, Philadelphia's chief of police Charles Ramsay said that this lack of response was becoming 'more and more common' and noted that people are more likely to use their cellphones to record assaults than to call the police.
前不久另外一起袭击案发生在光天化日之下的费城，被袭者是一位在街上行走的盲人。它之所以引起关注，是因为后来监控录像显示很多路人对袭击事件视而不见，一直没有拨打911电话。费城警察局长查尔斯?拉姆齐(Charles Ramsay)向当地一家电台发表评论说，这种无动于衷的情况“越来越常见了”。他指出，人们更有可能是用手机录下袭击事件而不是报警。
Indeed, YouTube features hundreds of such videos -- outbreaks of violence on sidewalks, in shopping malls and at restaurants. Many of these brawls, such as the one that broke out between two women during a victory parade for the New York Giants in 2012, feature crowds of people gathered around, cameras aloft and filming the spectacle.
事实上YouTube上面就有成百上千的这类视频──人行道、购物广场、餐馆突然发生的暴力事件。很多争斗事件都有大批人群在周围举着相机录像，比如2012年纽约巨人队(New York Giants)获胜之后的欢庆游行期间发生在两名女子之间的那场争斗。
Our use of technology has fundamentally changed not just our awareness in public spaces but our sense of duty to others. Engaged with the glowing screens in front of us rather than with the people around us, we often honestly don't notice what is going on. Adding to the problem is the ease with which we can record and send images, which encourages those of us who are paying attention to document emergencies rather than deal with them. The fascination with capturing images of violence is nothing new, as anyone who has perused Weegee's photographs of bloody crime scenes from the early 20th century can attest. But the ubiquity of camera-enabled cellphones has shifted the boundaries of acceptable behavior in these situations. We are all Weegee now.
对科技的使用，不仅从根本上改变了我们在公共场合对周遭事物的注意力，而且从根本上改变了我们对他人的责任感。因为是在跟眼前的发光屏幕而不是跟周围的人互动，我们常常确实不知道发生了什么事情。更严重的是，我们可以安心地摄录、发送影像，这促成了我们当中很多人专心记录突发情况而非处理突发情况的那些人。对捕捉暴力影像的迷恋并非新鲜事物，凡是看过20世纪初期维加(Weegee)拍摄的血腥犯罪现场的摄影作品的人都可以证明这一点。但如今拥有拍照功能的手机的无处不在，已经改变了这些情形下可接受行为的边界。现在我们都成了维加。
But if everyone is filming an emergency, who is responsible for intervening in it? Consider an event from December 2012, when a man was pushed onto the subway tracks in New York City. Struggling unsuccessfully to heave himself onto the platform, he turned, in his final seconds, to see the train barreling down on him. We know this because a freelance photographer who happened to be on the platform took a picture of the awful episode and sold it to the New York Post, which ran it on the front page the next day, prompting public outrage about profiting from a man's death. The photographer noted that others on the platform closer to the man made no effort to rescue him and quickly pulled out their phones to capture images of his dead body.
但如果大家都在拍摄突发事件，谁来负责干预?以一件2012年12月发生在纽约的事情为例，当时一名男子被人推到地铁轨道上，他想爬上站台未果，只好回过身去，在人生最后几秒看着列车朝自己驶来。我们之所以知道这一幕，是因为一位刚好在站台上的自由摄影师拍下了这一可怖的场景，并把照片卖给了《纽约邮报》 (New York Post)。第二天《纽约邮报》在头版刊发了这张照片，引起公众的愤怒，说他们发死人财。摄影师提到，站台上其他更接近男子的人员没有去救他，而是飞快地掏出手机捕捉尸体的影像。
The brutal nighttime stabbing of Kitty Genovese on a New York City sidewalk in 1964 became a symbol of the uninvolved bystander: Many people heard her screams, but no one went outside to assist her or to intervene in the attack. The incident spawned much hand-wringing and some intriguing social-science research about why we don't always come to each other's aid.
1964年的一个深夜，凯蒂?吉诺维斯(Kitty Genovese)在纽约的人行道上被人捅死，这一残酷事件已经成为袖手旁观现象的一个标志性事件：很多人听到她尖叫，但没人出去帮忙或干涉。此事引起很多人的担忧，一些人对人们不一定会出手相助的原因也做了一些发人深省的社会科学研究。
In a 1968 study, the sociologists John Darley and Bibb Latane tested the willingness of individuals to intervene in various emergency situations (a 'lady in distress,' a smoke-filled room). They found that the larger the number of people present, the more the sense of responsibility was diffused for any given individual. When alone, people were far more likely to help.
社会学家约翰?达利(John Darley)和比布?拉塔内(Bibb Latane)1968年的一项研究测试了多种紧急情况下(“女士有困难”，房间烟雾缭绕)个人出手干预的意愿。他们发现，在场的人越多，特定个人的责任感越淡薄。只有一个人的时候，出手相帮的可能性便大大增加。
In subsequent experiments, carried out by Irving Piliavin, bystanders were much more likely to help an actor on a subway car who pretended to be ill and asked for help. Why? As psychologist Elliot Aronson wrote in his classic textbook 'The Social Animal,' 'People riding on the same subway car do have the feeling of sharing a common fate, and they were in a face-to-face situation with the victim, from which there was no immediate escape.'
后来在欧文?皮利埃文(Irving Piliavin)的实验中，一位演员在地铁车厢里假装发病并请求帮忙，结果旁观者伸出援手的可能性大大增加。这是为什么呢?心理学家埃利奥特?阿伦森(Elliot Aronson)在其经典教材《社会性动物》(The Social Animal)里面写道:“乘坐同一节地铁车厢的人们确实感觉到拥有共同的命运，而且他们是处于一种跟受害者面对面、一时无法逃脱的处境中。”
The problem with many of our new gadgets, as the San Francisco shooting suggests, is that they often keep us from experiencing these face-to-face situations and the unspoken obligations that go with them. Most of these duties -- to be aware of others, to practice basic civility -- are not onerous. But on rare occasions, we are called upon to help others who are threatened or whose lives are in danger. At those moments, we should not be anticipating how many views we will get on YouTube if we film their distress; we should act. To do otherwise is to risk becoming a society not just of apathetic bystanders but of cruel voyeurs.
从旧金山枪击案可以看到，我们很多新型电子产品的问题在于，它们常常使我们感受不到这些面对面的处境，以及这些处境下不言自明的义务。尽这些责任──关心他人，做到基本的文明──大都并不是很费力。但在少数情况下，我们有义务帮助的他人是受到了威胁或面临着生命危险。在这样的时刻，我们期待的不应该是录下他们的困境会在YouTube上获得多少播放次数，我们应该采取行动。不然，我们的社会不仅有可能变成一群冷漠的旁观者，还有可能变成一群残酷的窥阴癖患者。(WSJ)
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