标题: 双语：网络时代让人们都改变了吗？ [打印本页] 作者: macmic 时间: 1970-1-1 08:00 标题: 双语：网络时代让人们都改变了吗？ Steven Fink recently received an unsolicited email containing nude photos of a woman whose jilted ex-boyfriend wanted to embarrass her. The guy presumably hoped these private photos would go viral online, and now countless strangers are obliging him in his mean-spirited campaign.
In the pre-Internet age, the dumped boyfriend may have expressed his anger by throwing darts at her photo. These days, however, the outlets for vindictiveness have multiplied almost to infinity -- and your reputation is more fragile than ever.
All of us now live under the threat of easy and instant humiliation. It's no longer just celebrities and business executives who need to think about aggressive reputation-protection and face-saving techniques.
Not long ago, people who routinely plugged their own names into online search engines were thought to be engaging in 'vanity Googling.' These days, it is an act of self-preservation. 'Google yourself at least once a week,' advises Richard Levick, who heads a strategic communications firm in Washington, D.C. 'You need to track what's being said about you' on blogs, message boards and social-networking websites.
Any time you leave your house, you could be targeted. Drive over to Wal-Mart for a gallon of milk and you may end up on PeopleofWalmart.com. The site -- not, needless to say, affiliated with the retailer -- runs smirk-inducing photos of overweight or oddly dressed shoppers, most of them sent in by other shoppers.
Such sites raise the question: Have we become a more malicious society? There are differing views.
这类网站不禁让我们提出一个疑问：我们这个社会是不是变得越来越恶毒了？对此，人们的观点不一。
'Human nature hasn't changed,' says Jonathan Bernstein, a crisis consultant in Los Angeles. 'There have always been people whose aim in life was to cause pain to others. If they saw people embarrassing themselves, they got pleasure in sharing that information. Before the Internet, they had to gossip with their neighbors. Now they can gossip with the world.'
Others argue that there has been a ratcheting up of meanness -- that the changes in technology have made us nastier and more cynical. 'It's like a blood sport,' says Mr. Fink, who runs a crisis-management firm in Los Angeles. 'It feels like everyone has their cellphone out, ready to take a photo that will hurt someone else.'