(单词翻译:单击)
In the 10 years since then, Zuckerberg did exactly what he said he would do.
在那之后的10年里，扎克伯格完全按照他说的做了。
He did rewire the way we spread and consume information; he did transform our institutions, and he pushed us past the tipping point.
他确实改变了我们传播信息和消费信息的方式；他确实改变了我们的制度，他把我们推过了临界点。
It has not worked out as he expected.
这并没有像他预期的那样成功。
Things Fall Apart
一切分崩离析。
Historically, civilizations have relied on shared blood, gods, and enemies to counteract the tendency to split apart as they grow.
从历史上看，文明依靠共同的血脉、神明和敌人来对抗随着发展而分裂的趋势。
But what is it that holds together large and diverse secular democracies such as the United States and India, or, for that matter, modern Britain and France?
但是，是什么把美国和印度这样庞大而多样的世俗民主国家联系在一起，或是将现代的英国和法国联系在一起的呢?
Social scientists have identified at least three major forces that collectively bind together successful democracies: social capital (extensive social networks with high levels of trust), strong institutions, and shared stories.
社会科学家已经确定，至少有三种主要力量共同将成功的民主国家联系在一起：社会资本(具有高度信任的广泛社会网络)、强大的制度和共享的故事。
Social media has weakened all three.
社交媒体削弱了这三个因素。
To see how, we must understand how social media changed over time—and especially in the several years following 2009.
要了解其中的原因，我们必须了解社交媒体是如何随着时间而变化的，尤其是在2009年之后的几年里。
In their early incarnations, platforms such as Myspace and Facebook were relatively harmless.
在早期，Myspace和Facebook等平台相对来说没什么危害。
They allowed users to create pages on which to post photos, family updates, and links to the mostly static pages of their friends and favorite bands.
他们允许用户创建页面，在上面发布照片、更新家庭动态，以及与他们的朋友和最喜欢的乐队的静态页面链接。
In this way, early social media can be seen as just another step in the long progression of technological improvements—from the Postal Service through the telephone to email and texting—that helped people achieve the eternal goal of maintaining their social ties.
在这种情况下，早期的社交媒体可以被视为漫长的技术进步过程中的又一步--从邮政服务到电话，再到电子邮件和短信--帮助人们实现维持社会关系的永恒目标。
But gradually, social-media users became more comfortable sharing intimate details of their lives with strangers and corporations.
但渐渐地，社交媒体用户变得更愿意与陌生人和公司分享他们生活中的私密细节。
As I wrote in a 2019 Atlantic article with Tobias Rose-Stockwell, they became more adept at putting on performances and managing their personal brand—activities that might impress others but that do not deepen friendships in the way that a private phone conversation will.
正如我在2019年与托拜厄斯·罗斯-斯托克韦尔在《大西洋月刊》上发表的一篇文章中所写的那样，他们变得更加善于表演和管理自己的个人品牌--这些活动可能会给其他人留下深刻印象，但不会像私人电话交谈那样加深友谊。
Once social-media platforms had trained users to spend more time performing and less time connecting, the stage was set for the major transformation, which began in 2009: the intensification of viral dynamics.
一旦社交媒体平台训练用户花更多的时间进行表演，减少连接时间，就为始于2009年的重大变革奠定了基础：病毒式动态传播的加剧。
