The digital world carries the promise of amusement that is constant, immediate and limitless. If a YouTube video isn’t funny in the first 10 seconds, why watch when I can instantly seek something better on BuzzFeed or Spotify? The Internet hasn’t shortened my attention span, but it has fixed a persistent thought in the back of my mind: Isn’t there’s something better to do than what I’m doing?

数码世界提供了源源不断、即时、无限的娱乐活动。如果YouTube上一段视频的前10秒没意思，那为何还要看它，反正我可以马上到BuzzFeed或Spotify找到更好的东西？互联网没有缩减我的注意力持续度，但它改变了我脑海中一个长期以来的想法：是不是有什么东西比我现在手上的更好？

Are we more easily bored than we were 20 years ago? Researchers don’t know, but recent studies support the suggestion that our antennas are always up. People’s performance on basic laboratory tests of attention gets worse if a cellphone is merely visible nearby. In another experiment, people using a driving simulator were more likely to hit a pedestrian when their cellphone rang, even if they had planned in advance not to answer it.

与20年前相比，我们现在更容易厌倦了吗？研究人员没有答案，但最近的研究支持了一个说法：我们的天线一直是开着的。在基本的实验室测试中，仅仅是有一部手机在视线范围之内，人们的注意力表现就会变差。在另一个实验中，如果手机在响，即使驾驶模拟器的人决定不去理睬它，也更有可能撞上行人。

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