鑽石舞台

It’s over. Facebook isin decline, Twitterin chaos. Mark Zuckerberg’s empire haslosthundreds of billions of dollars in value andlaid off11,000 people, with its ad business in peril and itsmetaverse fantasyin irons. Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has causedadvertisersto pull spending and power users to shun the platform (or at least to tweet a lot about doing so). It’s never felt more plausible that the age of social media might end—and soon.

它已經結束了。Facebook正在衰落，Twitter陷入混亂。馬克-扎克伯格的帝國已經損失了數千億美元的價值，並解僱了1.1萬人，其廣告業務岌岌可危，其元宇宙幻想也被打入冷宮。埃隆-馬斯克(Elon Musk)對推特的收購導致廣告商撤資，強大的用戶迴避該平台（或至少在推特上大談特談）。社交媒體時代可能會結束，而且很快就會結束，這種感覺從未像現在這樣合理。

/ˈperəl/，嚴重危險，名詞，英英釋義為：serious danger

例句：

The country's economy is now in grave peril.

現在，這個國家的經濟陷入了嚴重危機。

/ˈplɔːzəbl/，（藉口或解釋）有道理的；可信的，形容詞，英英釋義為：(of an excuse or explanation)reasonable and likely to be true

例句：

Her story sounded perfectly plausible.

她的說辭聽起來言之有理。

Now that we』ve washed up on this unexpected shore, we can look back at the shipwreck that left us here with fresh eyes. Perhaps we can find some relief: Social media was never a natural way to work, play, and socialize, though it did become second nature. The practice evolved via a weird mutation, one so subtle that it was difficult to spot happening in the moment.

現在我們被衝到了這個意外的岸邊，我們可以用新的眼光來審視把我們留在這裡的那艘沉船。也許我們可以找到一些解脫。社交媒體從來都不是工作、娛樂和社交的自然方式，儘管它確實成為了習慣。這種做法是通過一種奇怪的突變而演變的，這種突變是如此微妙，以至於當下很難發現它的發生。

第二天性；習性，英英釋義為：something that you do very easily and naturally, because it is part of your character or you have done it so many times

例句：

Observation with me issecond nature.

觀察能力是我的第二天性。

The shift began 20 years ago or so, when networked computers became sufficiently ubiquitous that people began using them to build and manage relationships. Social networking had its problems—collecting friends instead of, well, being friendly with them, for example—but they were modest compared with what followed. Slowly and without fanfare, around the end of the aughts, social media took its place. The change was almost invisible, but it had enormous consequences. Instead of facilitating the modest use of existing connections—largely for offline life (to organize a birthday party, say)—social software turned those connections into a latent broadcast channel. All at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.

這一轉變始於20年前左右，當時聯網的計算機變得非常普遍，人們開始使用它們來建立和管理關係。社交網絡有它的問題--例如，收集朋友而不是與他們友好相處--但與隨後發生的事情相比，它們是溫和的。慢慢地，在沒有大張旗鼓的情況下，在上世紀80年代末，社交媒體取代了它的位置。這種變化幾乎是看不見的，但它產生了巨大的影響。社交軟件將這些聯繫變成了一個潛在的廣播渠道，而不是促進對現有聯繫的適度使用--主要是用於線下生活（比如組織一個生日聚會）。一下子，數十億人把自己看作是名人、專家和時尚人士。

/ˈfænfeə(r)/，（為慶祝而在媒體上的）喧耀，名詞，英英釋義為：a large amount of activity and discussion on television, in newspapers, etc. to celebrate sb/sth

例句：

The product was launched amid much fanfare worldwide.

這個產品在世界各地隆重推出。

A global broadcast network where anyone can say anything to anyone else as often as possible, and where such people have come to think theydeservesuch a capacity, or even that withholding it amounts to censorship or suppression—that’s just a terrible idea from the outset. And it’s a terrible idea that is entirely and completely bound up with the concept of social media itself: systems erected and used exclusively to deliver an endless stream of content.

在一個全球廣播網絡中，任何人都可以儘可能頻繁地對其他人說任何話，而且這些人都認為他們應該有這樣的能力，甚至認為扣留這種能力相當於審查或壓制--這從一開始就是一個可怕的想法。而且這個可怕的想法完全和社交媒體本身的概念聯繫在一起：建立系統並專門用於提供無盡的內容流。

從開始，英英釋義為：at/from the beginning of sth

例句：

I made it clear right from the outset that I disapproved.

從一開始我就明確地說我不贊成。

But now, perhaps, it can also end. The possible downfall of Facebook and Twitter (and others) is an opportunity—not to shift to some equivalent platform, but to embrace their ruination, something previously unthinkable.

但現在，也許，它也可以結束。Facebook和Twitter（以及其他）可能的衰落是一個機會--不是轉向一些其他類似平台，而是接受它們的毀滅，這在以前是不可想象的。

A long time ago, many social networks walked the Earth. Six Degrees launched in 1997, named after a Pulitzer-nominatedplaybased on apsychological experiment. It shut down soon after the dot-com crash of 2000—the world wasn’t ready yet. Friendster arose from its ashes in 2002, followed by MySpace and LinkedIn the next year, then Hi5 and Facebook in 2004, the latter for students at select colleges and universities. That year also saw the arrival of Orkut, made and operated by Google. Bebo launched in 2005; eventually both AOL and Amazon would own it. Google Buzz and Google+ were born and then killed. You』ve probably never heard of some of these, but before Facebook was everywhere, many of these services were immensely popular.

很久以前，許多社交網絡在地球上行走。六度"於1997年推出，以普利策獎提名的一部基於心理學實驗的戲劇命名。它在2000年互聯網崩潰後不久就關閉了--世界還沒有準備好。2002年，社交網站Friendster從它的灰燼中誕生，第二年是MySpace和LinkedIn，然後是2004年的Hi5和Facebook，後者是針對特定學院和大學的學生。這一年還看到了由谷歌製造和運營的Orkut的到來。Bebo於2005年推出；最終AOL和亞馬遜都將擁有它。Google Buzz和Google+誕生，然後被扼殺。你可能從來沒有聽說過其中的一些，但是在Facebook普及之前，這些服務中有許多是非常受歡迎的。

Content-sharing sites also acted as de facto social networks, allowing people to see material posted mostly by people they knew or knew of, rather than from across the entire world. Flickr, the photo-sharing site, was one; YouTube—once seen as Flickr for video—was another. Blogs (and bloglike services, such as Tumblr) raced alongside them, hosting 「musings」 seen by few and engaged by fewer. In 2008, the Dutch media theorist Geert Lovink published a book about blogs and social networks whose title summarized their average reach:Zero Comments.

內容共享網站也充當了事實上的社交網絡，使人們能夠看到主要由他們認識或了解的人發布的材料，而不是來自整個世界。照片共享網站Flickr是其中之一；YouTub--曾被視為視頻的Flickr--是另一個。博客（和類似博客的服務，如Tumblr）與它們並駕齊驅，主辦"雜談"的人很少，參與的人更少。2008年，荷蘭媒體理論家Geert Lovink出版了一本關於博客和社交網絡的書，書名概括了它們的平均影響力：《零評論》。

Today, people refer to all of these services and more as 「social media,」 a name so familiar that it has ceased to bear meaning. But two decades ago, that term didn’t exist. Many of these sites framed themselves as a part of a 「web 2.0」 revolution in 「user-generated content,」 offering easy-to-use, easily adopted tools on websites and then mobile apps. They were built for creating and sharing 「content,」 a term that had previously meant 「satisfied」 when pronounced differently. But at the time, and for years, these offerings were framed associal networksor, more often,social-network services. So many SNSes proliferated, a joke acronym arose: YASN, or 「yet another social network.」 These things wereeverywhere, like dandelions in springtime.

今天，人們把所有這些服務和更多的服務稱為"社會媒體"，這個名字如此熟悉，以至於它不再有意義了。但在20年前，這個詞還不存在。這些網站中的許多都把自己定位為"用戶生成內容"的"網絡2.0 "革命的一部分，在網站和移動應用程序上提供易於使用、易於採納的工具。它們是為創造和分享"內容"而建立的，這個詞以前的意思是"滿意"，但發音不同。但在當時，以及多年來，這些產品被框定為社交網絡，或更常見的是社交網絡服務。如此多的SNS激增，出現了一個笑話式的縮寫。YASN，或"又一個社交網絡"。這些東西無處不在，就像春天裡的蒲公英。

As the original name suggested, social networking involvedconnecting, not publishing. By connecting your personal network of trusted contacts (or 「strong ties,」 as sociologists call them) to others』 such networks (via 「weak ties」), you could surface a larger network of trusted contacts. LinkedIn promised to make job searching and business networking possible by traversing the connections of your connections. Friendster did so for personal relationships, Facebook for college mates, and so on. The whole idea of social networks wasnetworking: building or deepening relationships, mostly with people you knew. How and why that deepening happened was largely left to the users to decide.

正如最初的名字所暗示的，社交網絡涉及連接，而不是發布。通過將你的個人可信聯繫人網絡（或社會學家稱之為"強關係"）與其他人的此類網絡（通過"弱關係"）相連接，你可以浮現出一個更大的可信聯繫人網絡。LinkedIn承諾，通過穿越你的關係人的連接，使求職和商業網絡成為可能。Friendster對個人關係如此，Facebook對大學同學如此，等等。社交網絡的整個理念是建立網絡：建立或深化關係，主要是與你認識的人。如何以及為何加深關係，主要由用戶自己決定。

From：The Atlantic

中文翻譯源於機翻

peril [n] 嚴重危險

plausible [adj]（藉口或解釋）有道理的；可信的

second nature第二天性；習性

fanfare [n]（為慶祝而在媒體上的）喧耀

at/from the outset (of sth)從開始