Name: 網路現在比以往更糟——接下來怎麼辦？ (The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?)
Uploaded: 2025-12-27T07:01:58.000Z
Duration: 11 min 32 s

程度副詞

In 2022, nearly half of Americans expected a civil war in the next few years.

2022年，近半數美國人預期未來幾年會發生內戰。

One in five now believes political violence is justified.

五分之一的人現在認為政治暴力是正當的。

情態副詞

And it's not just the US but around the world, people increasingly see themselves as part of opposing teams.

這不只發生在美國，而是全球各地，人們越來越認為自己屬於對立的陣營。

There are many different reasons for this, but one gets blamed a lot.

這有很多不同的原因，但有一個常被歸咎。

Social media divides us, makes us more extreme and less empathetic.

社群媒體將我們分開，讓我們更極端、更缺乏同理心。

It riles us up or sucks us into doom scrolling, making us stressed and depressed.

它激怒我們，或讓我們陷入絕望滑手機，使我們感到壓力與沮喪。

It feels like we need to touc grass and escape to the real world.

感覺我們需要觸碰真實世界，逃離到現實世界。

New research shows that we might have largely misinterpreted why this is the case.

新研究顯示，我們可能嚴重誤解了原因。

It turns out that the social media Internet may uniquely undermine the way our brains work, but

結果發現，社群媒體網路可能獨特地破壞我們大腦運作的方式，但

You've probably heard about online filter bubbles.

你可能聽說過網路上的過濾氣泡。

Algorithms give you exactly what you want, or what they think you want.

演算法會給你你想要的東西，或它們認為你想要的東西。

You only see information that shows you opinions that agree with yours, while dissenting opinions or information are filtered out.

你只會看到顯示你與你相左的意見的資訊，而相左的意見或資訊則被過濾掉了。

Since you only see content close to your worldview, more extreme and toxic opinions suddenly seem less extreme.

由於你只看到接近你世界觀的內容，更極端、更負面的意見突然看起來就沒那麼極端了。

You're trapped in a radicalizing filter bubble and your view of the world becomes narrower and more extreme.

你被困在一個激進化、不斷擴大的過濾氣泡中，你的世界觀變得越來越狹隘、越來越極端。

Extreme filter bubbles seem to be rather rare.

極端的過濾氣泡似乎相當罕見。

Studies that investigated what people actually look at online or are shown by search engines found little evidence that you're ideologically isolated.

調查人們在網路上實際看什麼或搜尋引擎顯示給他們什麼的研究發現，你意識形態孤立的證據很少。

Online, you are constantly confronted with opinions and worldviews that are not your own.

在網路上，你會不斷接觸到不屬於你自己的意見和世界觀。

It turns out that the place where you are the most ideologically isolated is your real life in the real world with real people.

結果發現，你意識形態最孤立的地方，反而是你在現實世界中與真實人們的真實生活。

Your real world interactions with your friends, family, colleagues and neighbors are much less diverse than your online bubble.

你與朋友、家人、同事和鄰居的現實生活互動，比你在網路上的過濾氣泡來得單調許多。

The filter bubble exists in your real life, not online.

過濾氣泡存在於你的現實生活中，而不是網路上。

Online filter bubbles have been the prevailing explanation as to why we've all started hating each other more over the last two decades.

網路上的過濾氣泡，一直是過去二十年來我們彼此憎恨加劇的主流解釋。

If that's not the case, shouldn't the Internet open our minds and make us more empathetic with each other?

如果不是這樣，網路難道不應該開闊我們的眼界，讓我們更有同理心嗎？

Human brains didn't evolve to understand the true nature of reality, but to navigate and maintain social structures.

人類的大腦並非為了理解現實的真實本質而演化，而是為了駕馭和維持社會結構。

Our ancestors desperately needed each other to survive, so our brains had to make sure we cooperated.

我們的祖先為了生存，極度需要彼此，所以我們的大腦必須確保我們能合作。

That's why social isolation or exclusion feels so horrible.

這就是為什麼社會孤立或排斥會讓人感覺如此糟糕。

Because it was actually life threatening.

A divided tribe died the way communities worked for thousands of years.

一個分裂的部落就這樣滅亡，就像數千年來社群運作的方式一樣。

Is that sure, you may have disliked a neighbor, but

because you lived close to each other, you also rooted for the same sports club or saw Them at church, you both thought that the people from the other village were idiots.

因為你們住得很近，你們也支持同一個運動隊，或是在教堂見過面，你們都認為隔壁村莊的人是笨蛋。

Being physically close made you familiar and created similarities that bridged the gap of different worldviews so you didn't murder each other.

身體上的親近讓我們熟悉彼此，並創造了相似之處，彌合了不同世界觀的差距，讓我們不會互相殘殺。

And your worldview was probably not that different in the first place because it was formed by the same local culture.

而且，你的世界觀在一開始可能差異不大，因為它是由相同的在地文化形成的。

When our brains evolved, this was enough.

我們大腦演化時，這樣就夠了。

This kept us aligned enough to work together despite our differences.

這讓我們能因為差異而合作，並保持足夠的協調。

As humanity moved on from small tribes to towns and cities, from chiefdoms to kingdoms to nations, our brains and our communities had to adapt to more diverse sets of neighbors.

隨著人類從小型部落發展到城鎮和城市，從酋邦到王國再到國家，我們的大腦和社群也必須適應更多樣化的鄰居。

We began to meet on the town square or in universities, where we argued and screamed at each other.

我們開始在廣場或大學相遇，在那裡互相爭吵和叫罵。

But in the grand scheme of things, communities were still relatively isolated.

但總體來說，社群仍然相對孤立。

We were still pretty similar and aligned with the people around us.

我們周遭的人還是很相似，也很合得來。

Conflict and disagreement are not a bad thing, per se.

衝突和意見不合本身並不是壞事。

Tension over how we should live can create new and wonderful things.

關於我們該如何生活的張力，可以創造出全新且美好的事物。

Our values, norms, and taboos are always evolving.

我們的價值觀、規範和禁忌總是在演變。

And whatever we think is normal today will not be normal in the future.

而我們今天認為正常的，未來就不會是正常的了。

But we also need social glue to hold our societies together, because our brains don't care about the meta level of humanity, but

但我們也需要社會的凝聚力來維繫我們的社會，因為我們的大腦不在乎人類的宏觀層面，而是

Until about 20 years ago, we did something truly new that hit our brains like a freight train.

大約二十年前，我們做了一件全新的事，它像火車頭一樣衝擊了我們的大腦。

The social media Internet, the digital town square.

In a nutshell, our brains are not able to process the amount of disagreement we encounter on the social Internet.

總之，我們的大腦無法處理在社群網路上遇到的龐大歧見。

The very mechanisms that made it possible for our ancestors to work together in the first place are derailed in ways we were not prepared for.

那些讓我們的祖先得以合作的機制，正以我們未曾預料的方式失控。

Whether you want it to or not, your brain sorts people by world views and opinions into teams.

不管你願不願意，我們的大腦都會把人依世界觀和意見抽成不同隊伍。

Researchers have called this process social sorting.

研究人員稱這個過程為社會分群。

On the digital town square, you encounter people that express opinions or share information that clash with your worldview.

在數位廣場上，你會遇到跟你世界觀相左的意見或資訊。

But unlike your neighbor, they don't root for your local sports club.

但跟你的鄰居不一樣，他們不支持你當地的運動隊。

You're missing the local social glue your brain needs to align with them.

你缺乏大腦用來與他們連結的在地社會連結。

For your brain, the disagreement between yourself and them becomes a central part of their identity.

對我們的大腦來說，你和他們的歧見就成了他們身分認同的核心。

And this makes it less likely that you will seriously consider their position or opinion in the future.

這也讓未來你認真考慮他們立場或意見的可能性降低。

If you hear bad things about them, your brain is much more likely to believe it uncritically.

如果你聽到關於他們的壞話，我們的大腦就更有可能不加批判地相信。

On the flip side, there are people who share your worldview and are maybe even more similar to you than many people in your real life, which makes your brain like them a lot and kind of hyper align with Them.

另一方面，有些人跟你擁有相同世界觀，甚至比你現實生活中的許多人更像你，這會讓你大腦非常喜歡他們，並且與他們高度同步。

People who think like you are probably good people because you're a good person and whatever social group you belong to is good.

跟你想法一樣的人，很可能都是好人，因為你也是個好人，而你所屬的任何社群團體都是好的。

So your brain is more likely to believe their opinions.

所以你的大腦更有可能相信他們的意見。

If you hear bad things about them, your brain is much more likely to dismiss it uncritically.

如果你聽到關於他們的壞話，你的大腦就更有可能不加批判地相信。

The engagement driven social Internet makes it worse because it wants to keep you online as long as possible and the most engaging emotion is unfortunately anger.

社群媒體的互動機制讓情況變得更糟，因為它想讓你盡可能長時間地待在網路上，而最能引起互動的情緒很不幸就是憤怒。

The more angry you get, the more likely you are to share and engage.

你越生氣，就越有可能分享和互動。

And this leads to social media amplifying the most extreme and controversial opinions.

這導致社群媒體放大了最極端和最具爭議性的意見。

It optimizes not only to show us disagreement, but the worst disagreement possible.

它不僅優化顯示我們之間的歧見，更是最糟糕的歧見。

And because your stupid brain is sorting people into teams, whatever the worst opinions are, it assigns the same opinions to everybody on the other team.

而且因為你那愚蠢的大腦會將人們分門別類，無論最糟糕的意見是什麼，它都會將相同的意見歸咎於對方隊伍的每個人。

What's striking and new about online polarisation is that all the aspects of our lives that make us individuals, our lifestyle choices, the comedians or shows we watch, our religion, sense of fashion and so on, are condensed, making it seem that they're parts of opposing and mutually exclusive identities.

網路極化的驚人之處和新穎之處在於，我們生活中所有讓我們成為個體的面向，像是生活方式的選擇、我們看的喜劇或節目、我們的宗教、時尚感等等，都被濃縮了，讓它們看起來像是對立且互斥的身份認同的一部分。

This simplifies and distorts disagreements about how we should run society so much that it often seems as if the people on the other team are actively, willfully making the world worse that they're almost evil beyond convincing with rationality, facts or civil discussion.

這使得關於我們該如何經營社會的歧見被過度簡化和扭曲，以至於對方陣營的人們似乎是刻意、蓄意地讓世界變得更糟，他們邪惡到無法用理性、事實或平等的討論來讓他們信服。

While you are of course on the correct team, it may be hard to process that you may seem like that to people on the other team.

雖然你當然是站在正確的陣營，但你可能很難接受，在對方陣營的人眼中，你可能也是這樣。

On a societal level, this is dissolving the social glue that's the foundation of our democracies.

在社會層面上，這正在瓦解我們民主的基石——社會連結。

If we think our neighbors are evil, how can we live together?

如果我們認為鄰居是邪惡的，我們該如何一起生活？

This is especially bad in the US where the two party system makes it extra easy to think of people in terms of teams.

這在美國尤其糟糕，兩黨制讓將人們視為陣營變得格外容易。

Negative opinion about the other party has reached record highs.

對另一黨的負面意見已創下新高。

Ok, is there something we can learn from this?

好的，我們能從中學到什麼嗎？

In the end, it's important to be aware of what social media does to your brain.

最終，瞭解社群媒體對你大腦的影響非常重要。

It's easier to change yourself than to change the world.

改變自己比改變世界容易多了。

So you can self examine why you believe the things you believe and whether you dismiss or believe information based on who the person is who is stating that information.

所以你可以自我檢視，為什麼你會相信你所相信的，以及你是否會因為說話的人是誰，而忽略或相信資訊。

The Internet comes with a lot of ups and downs and just like we had to adapt from living in small tribes to living in cities, we need to adapt to the information age where we have access to billions of people.

網路有好有壞，就像我們必須從居住在小部落適應到居住在城市一樣，我們也需要適應資訊時代，在這個時代我們可以接觸到數十億人。

Evolution is too slow, so we need to find models that work with what our brains are able to tolerate.

演化太慢了，所以我們需要找到能配合我們大腦所能容忍的模式。

One model that seemed to work well was the pre social media Internet Old people might remember bulletin boards, forums, blogs.

有一種模式似乎運作得很好，那就是社群媒體出現之前的網路。老一輩的人可能還記得佈告欄、論壇、部落格。

The main difference to today was twofold.

For one, there were no algorithms fighting to keep you online at any cost.

一來，沒有演算法為了任何代價都要讓你待在網路上。

At some point you were done with the Internet for the day, as mind blowing as this may sound.

某個時候，你一天就結束了網路使用，這聽起來可能很令人震驚。

But more importantly, the old Internet was very fractured, split into thousands of different communities.

但更重要的是，舊的網路非常破碎，抽成成千上萬個不同的社群。

Like small villages gathering around shared beliefs and interests.

就像小村莊聚集在共同的信仰和興趣周圍一樣。