2024年3月30日发(作者：)

A Virtual Life

Maia Szalavitz, formerly a television producer， now spends her time as a writer. In this essay she

explores digital reality and its consequences。 Along the way， she compares the digital world to the

"real” world， acknowledging the attractions of the electronic dimension。

迈亚·塞拉维茨曾是电视制片人，目前从事写作。她在本文中探索了数字化世界及其后果。与此同时，她

将数字化世界与真实世界做了比较,承认电子空间自有其魅力。

Maia Szalavitz

1 After too long on the Net， even a phone call can be a shock。 My boyfriend's Liverpool

accent suddenly becomes impossible to interpret after his easily understood words on screen； a

secretary's clipped tone seems more rejecting than I’d imagined it would be。 Time itself becomes

fluid -- hours become minutes， or seconds stretch into days. Weekends， once a highlight of my

week， are now just two ordinary days。

虚拟世界的生活

迈亚·塞拉维茨

在网上呆了太久,听到电话铃声也会吓一大跳.显示屏上看多了我男朋友那些一目了然的文字，他的利物浦

口音一下子变得难以听懂；而秘书的清脆快速的语调听上去比我想象的要生硬.时间本身变得捉摸不定--几小时

变成几分钟，或几秒钟延伸为几天。周末原本是我一周的黄金时段,现在却不过是平平常常的两天。

2 For the last three years, since I stopped working as a television producer, I have done much

of my work as a telecommuter。 I submit articles and edit them via email and communicate with

colleagues on Internet mailing lists. My boyfriend lives in England， so much of our relationship is also

computer-assisted.

在我不再当电视制片人的这三年间，我的大部分工作都是在家里使用计算机终端进行的.我通过电子邮件

投稿和校订，利用互联网上的人名地址与同行交流.我男朋友住在英国，因此两人的关系也在很大程度上借助于

电脑维系。

3 If I desired， I could stay inside for weeks without wanting anything。 I can order food, and

manage my money, love and work. In fact, at times I have spent as long as three weeks alone at

home， going out only to get mail and buy newspapers and groceries. I watched most of the endless

snowstorm of '96 on TV。

我要是愿意的话，可以一连几个星期不出门而什么也不缺。我可以在网上订购食品、网上理财、网上恋

爱、网上工作。事实上我有时独自呆在家里长达三个星期，只偶尔出去拿信、买报纸及日用品。1996年那一场

接一场的暴风雪我大都是在电视上看到的。

4 But after a while， life itself begins to feel unreal. I start to feel as though I’ve become one

with my machines, taking data in, spitting them back out, just another link in the Net。 Others on line

report the same symptoms. We start to feel an aversion to outside forms of socializing。 We have

become the Net critics’ worst nightmare。

然而,一段时间之后，生活本身就显得不那么真实了。我开始觉得自己似乎与机器融为一体了，我接收信

息，再发送出去，就如同互联网的一个连接点.其他上网的人也谈到了同样的症状。我们开始厌恶外面的社交方

式。我们的状况成了批评互联网的人们最害怕见到的一幕。

5 What first seemed like a luxury, crawling from bed to computer, not worrying about hair, and

clothes and face， has become a form of escape, a lack of discipline. And once you start replacing real

human contact with cyber—interaction, coming back out of the cave can be quite difficult。 一

下床就上机，不再为发型、服饰、面部化妆烦心，起初看似高级的享受如今却成为一种对生活的逃避，一种缺