社交媒體重塑家庭關係

Recently, a friend showed me her mobile phone, with a despairing sigh. The screen was a mosaic of photos of a goggle-eyed baby, taken from every conceivable angle, sometimes holding chirpy, handwritten messages. “It’s overwhelming my inbox!” she muttered, explaining that four months earlier she had become a grandmother to the infant, who lived in a different city. A decade ago, that would have meant she only saw the baby every month — say, over a holiday meal.

最近，一位朋友帶着一聲絕望的嘆息，把她的手機給我看。屏幕上是一個睜大眼睛的嬰兒各個角度照片的拼接圖，有的照片還附帶了快活的手寫信息。“這塞滿了我的收件箱！”她嘟囔着，解釋說屏幕上是她那4個月前剛出生的孫子。孩子和父母在另一個城市生活。若是換到10年前，她只能一個月見到孩子一次，比如在節日聚餐的時候。

But not in 2015. In the past month, the doting parents have taken to dispatching baby photos to all their friends and family on a daily basis. And now — to her utter bewilderment — my friend has been asked to send text messages to the infant. The idea is that these “texts” can be posted online to show that the grandparents are constantly thinking about their new grandson, and thus enable the family to “connect”. “It’s crazy,” she giggled, explaining that she didn’t want to cause offence but could not quite bring herself to send texts to a four-month-old. “What do I do?”

但在2015年，情況不同了。上個月，寵愛孩子的父母開始每天向所有的朋友和家人發送孩子的照片。而現在，讓我的朋友非常迷惑的是，他們要求我的朋友給孩子發文字消息。這其中的想法是，這些“文字”能夠公佈到網上，以彰顯祖父母時刻在思念着他們剛出世的孫子，從而讓整個家庭“聯繫起來”。“這太瘋狂了，”她咯咯直笑，解釋說她不想惹惱家人，但她真的沒辦法給一個4個月大的嬰兒發送文字消息。“我該怎麼辦呢？”

It is a peculiarly 21st-century dilemma. As linguists and anthropologists know well, the way that human families define themselves and communicate with each other has changed numerous times over the millennia. But the past decade has produced a shift in the pattern of family communications that is more speedy and intense than anything seen before.

這是一個21世紀特有的窘境。語言學家和人類學家非常瞭解，千年以來，人類家庭詮釋自身以及成員間互相溝通的方式發生了無數次改變。但在過去十年，家庭溝通方式發生的轉變比以往任何一次都要迅速和劇烈。

Never mind the fact that the internet has suddenly linked the entire globe; social media and mobile phones have enabled us all to disappear into cyber space, colliding and connecting — however we choose. That is not just reshaping work but altering domestic space, creating new forms of cyber family traditions, even during the holidays.

不必擔心如下事實：互聯網在突然之間將全球連接在一起；社交媒體和手機讓所有人消失在網絡空間之中，發生不受我們自身控制的相互碰撞和連接。這不僅重塑了我們的工作環境，也改變了我們的家庭空間，創造出新形式的網絡家庭傳統，甚至是節日傳統。

For many people, this shift seems frightening. Last month, for example, Newmarket Holidays, one of the UK’s largest tour operators, conducted a survey of grandparents that showed that more than three-quarters thought that their relationship with their grandchildren was different from the relationship they had with their own grandparents — and that more than half feel that the difficulty in sharing Christmas traditions is due to computer games taking the attention of their grandchildren. Another third blamed mobile phones and TV for distracting the kids and undermining the type of traditional Christmas activities that the grandparents thought were crucial to maintain family ties (such as talking, playing board games or singing songs).

對很多人來說，這種轉變似乎很可怕。比如，英國最大的旅行社之一Newmarket Holidays上個月對祖父母進行了一項調查。結果顯示，超過四分之三的受調查者認爲他們與孫輩的關係不同於他們和自己的祖父母的關係，超過一半的受調查者感到與孩子分享聖誕節傳統存在困難，原因是電腦遊戲佔據了孫輩們的注意力。另有三分之一的受調查者指責手機和電視讓孩子分心，削弱了他們認爲對維繫家庭關係起關鍵作用的聖誕節傳統活動（比如聊天、玩棋盤遊戲或者唱歌）。

Other surveys in the US reflect this concern. Between half and two-thirds of adults today say that children are too obsessed with social media, and fear that the rapid proliferation of electronic gadgets is creating a more individualistic, alienated society. It is little wonder, then, that one of the fastest-growing categories of self-help books is the one which tells people how to maintain social connections — and quality family time — in the face of this digital onslaught. No doubt some of those books have been handed around as Christmas presents (along with a vastly bigger mountain of electronic gadgets).

美國的一些其他調查也反映了這種憂慮。現在有一半到三分之二的成年人認爲兒童對社交媒體過於沉迷，他們擔心電子玩意兒的迅速普及正在造就一個人們更強調個性、彼此更疏遠的社會。所以，這也難怪增長最快的一類自助圖書，是教人們如何在這種數字攻勢下維持社會關係、保證和家人一起度過寶貴時光的書。毫無疑問，一些人將這種書作爲聖誕禮物（與大得多的一堆電子器件一起）送給家人朋友。

But while it is easy for parents (like me) to worry that iPads, iPhones and Instagram are undermining the family, it is not always that simple. As Danah Boyd, a digital anthropologist, points out, our cyber behaviour needs to be viewed in a much bigger social context. Take the oft-cited concern that electronic media are separating children from their parents (or grandparents). To a casual observer, this might seem self-evident, given how much time children tend to spend online, roaming cyber space or chatting with friends.

但是，儘管父母們（比如我）很容易擔憂iPad、iPhone和Instagram正在削弱家庭關係，可事情並不總是那麼簡單。數字人類學家丹納•博伊德(Danah Boyd)指出，我們在網絡上的行爲需要放到一個大得多的社會背景下進行理解。一個常被提及的憂慮是，電子媒體正使孩子與他們的父母（或者祖父母）的關係更爲疏遠。以此爲例，對一般的觀察者來說，考慮到孩子們在網絡漫遊或者與朋友聊天等在線活動上花了多少時間，這一點似乎是不言而喻的。

But, as Boyd points out, what children are doing online today is simply an extension of what they used to do in the real world. In the past, kids often wandered the streets (or woods and fields) with relative freedom, and used that time to explore boundaries and congregate with friends. But now that this has been curtailed by protective parents, children are roaming in cyber space instead. While Twitter or Instagram might be new, what is not new is the idea that teens want to escape — even at Christmas.

但是，就如博伊德指出的，今天的孩子們在網絡上做的事情不過是過去他們在真實世界裏做的事情的延伸。過去，孩子們經常相對自由地在街道上（或者樹林和田野中）漫遊，並且花時間探索邊界，與朋友們聚在一起。但現在，想保護孩子的父母限制了這些活動，因此孩子們轉而在網絡空間中漫遊。儘管Twitter或者Instagram或許是新事物，但青少年哪怕是在聖誕節的時候都想要逃離，這種想法卻並不是新鮮事。

Similarly, while the rise of social media might undermine the type of family traditions that grandparents say they love, it is also creating new links. Parents today can monitor what teenagers are saying to each other far more closely than before. Kids can talk — or Skype or FaceTime — with their relatives all over the world on Christmas Day. Family news or holiday snaps can be shared on social media platforms.

類似的，儘管社交媒體的興起或許削弱了祖父母喜愛的一些家庭傳統，但同時也創造了新的關聯。當今的父母們可以更嚴密地監控青少年談話的內容。孩子們可以通過Skype或者Facetime在聖誕節這天與世界各地的親人聊天。家庭新聞或者節日照片能夠在社交媒體平臺上分享。

Then there is the innovation of sending “texts” to babies. To some people (such as my friend) that might sound bizarre; to others (like my friends’ children) it seems normal. Either way, the key point is this: in today’s cyber world we have extraordinary freedom to reshape our family web as we choose. And that is rather an inspiring development to consider — particularly as another holiday season draws to a close. 6

還有關於給嬰兒發送“文字”的新穎做法。對一些人（比如我的朋友）來說，這聽上去可能很怪異，但對另一些人（比如我朋友的子女）來說，這或許很正常。不管怎樣，關鍵點是在今天的網絡世界裏，我們有很大的自由，按照自己的心意重塑家庭網絡。這是一種值得我們思考的、令人相當鼓舞的新情況，尤其是在下一個節假日到來之前。