Recently, a friend showed me her mobile phone, with a despairing sigh. The screen was a mosaic of photos of a goggle-eyed baby, taken from every conceivable angle, sometimes holding chirpy, handwritten messages. “It’s overwhelming my inbox!” she muttered, explaining that four months earlier she had become a grandmother to the infant, who lived in a different city. A decade ago, that would have meant she only saw the baby every month — say, over a holiday meal.
最近，一位朋友带着一声绝望的叹息，把她的手机给我看。屏幕上是一个睁大眼睛的婴儿各个角度照片的拼接图，有的照片还附带了快活的手写信息。“这塞满了我的收件箱！”她嘟囔着，解释说屏幕上是她那4个月前刚出生的孙子。孩子和父母在另一个城市生活。若是换到10年前，她只能一个月见到孩子一次，比如在节日聚餐的时候。

But not in 2015. In the past month, the doting parents have taken to dispatching baby photos to all their friends and family on a daily basis. And now — to her utter bewilderment — my friend has been asked to send text messages to the infant. The idea is that these “texts” can be posted online to show that the grandparents are constantly thinking about their new grandson, and thus enable the family to “connect”. “It’s crazy,” she giggled, explaining that she didn’t want to cause offence but could not quite bring herself to send texts to a four-month-old. “What do I do?”
但在2015年，情况不同了。上个月，宠爱孩子的父母开始每天向所有的朋友和家人发送孩子的照片。而现在，让我的朋友非常迷惑的是，他们要求我的朋友给孩子发文字消息。这其中的想法是，这些“文字”能够公布到网上，以彰显祖父母时刻在思念着他们刚出世的孙子，从而让整个家庭“联系起来”。“这太疯狂了，”她咯咯直笑，解释说她不想惹恼家人，但她真的没办法给一个4个月大的婴儿发送文字消息。“我该怎么办呢？”
It is a peculiarly 21st-century dilemma. As linguists and anthropologists know well, the way that human families define themselves and communicate with each other has changed numerous times over the millennia. But the past decade has produced a shift in the pattern of family communications that is more speedy and intense than anything seen before.
这是一个21世纪特有的窘境。语言学家和人类学家非常了解，千年以来，人类家庭诠释自身以及成员间互相沟通的方式发生了无数次改变。但在过去十年，家庭沟通方式发生的转变比以往任何一次都要迅速和剧烈。
Never mind the fact that the internet has suddenly linked the entire globe; social media and mobile phones have enabled us all to disappear into cyber space, colliding and connecting — however we choose. That is not just reshaping work but altering domestic space, creating new forms of cyber family traditions, even during the holidays.
不必担心如下事实：互联网在突然之间将全球连接在一起；社交媒体和手机让所有人消失在网络空间之中，发生不受我们自身控制的相互碰撞和连接。这不仅重塑了我们的工作环境，也改变了我们的家庭空间，创造出新形式的网络家庭传统，甚至是节日传统。
For many people, this shift seems frightening. Last month, for example, Newmarket Holidays, one of the UK’s largest tour operators, conducted a survey of grandparents that showed that more than three-quarters thought that their relationship with their grandchildren was different from the relationship they had with their own grandparents — and that more than half feel that the difficulty in sharing Christmas traditions is due to computer games taking the attention of their grandchildren. Another third blamed mobile phones and TV for distracting the kids and undermining the type of traditional Christmas activities that the grandparents thought were crucial to maintain family ties (such as talking, playing board games or singing songs).
对很多人来说，这种转变似乎很可怕。比如，英国最大的旅行社之一Newmarket Holidays上个月对祖父母进行了一项调查。结果显示，超过四分之三的受调查者认为他们与孙辈的关系不同于他们和自己的祖父母的关系，超过一半的受调查者感到与孩子分享圣诞节传统存在困难，原因是电脑游戏占据了孙辈们的注意力。另有三分之一的受调查者指责手机和电视让孩子分心，削弱了他们认为对维系家庭关系起关键作用的圣诞节传统活动（比如聊天、玩棋盘游戏或者唱歌）。
Other surveys in the US reflect this concern. Between half and two-thirds of adults today say that children are too obsessed with social media, and fear that the rapid proliferation of electronic gadgets is creating a more individualistic, alienated society. It is little wonder, then, that one of the fastest-growing categories of self-help books is the one which tells people how to maintain social connections — and quality family time — in the face of this digital onslaught. No doubt some of those books have been handed around as Christmas presents (along with a vastly bigger mountain of electronic gadgets).
美国的一些其他调查也反映了这种忧虑。现在有一半到三分之二的成年人认为儿童对社交媒体过于沉迷，他们担心电子玩意儿的迅速普及正在造就一个人们更强调个性、彼此更疏远的社会。所以，这也难怪增长最快的一类自助图书，是教人们如何在这种数字攻势下维持社会关系、保证和家人一起度过宝贵时光的书。毫无疑问，一些人将这种书作为圣诞礼物（与大得多的一堆电子器件一起）送给家人朋友。
But while it is easy for parents (like me) to worry that iPads, iPhones and Instagram are undermining the family, it is not always that simple. As Danah Boyd, a digital anthropologist, points out, our cyber behaviour needs to be viewed in a much bigger social context. Take the oft-cited concern that electronic media are separating children from their parents (or grandparents). To a casual observer, this might seem self-evident, given how much time children tend to spend online, roaming cyber space or chatting with friends.
但是，尽管父母们（比如我）很容易担忧iPad、iPhone和Instagram正在削弱家庭关系，可事情并不总是那么简单。数字人类学家丹纳•博伊德(Danah Boyd)指出，我们在网络上的行为需要放到一个大得多的社会背景下进行理解。一个常被提及的忧虑是，电子媒体正使孩子与他们的父母（或者祖父母）的关系更为疏远。以此为例，对一般的观察者来说，考虑到孩子们在网络漫游或者与朋友聊天等在线活动上花了多少时间，这一点似乎是不言而喻的。
But, as Boyd points out, what children are doing online today is simply an extension of what they used to do in the real world. In the past, kids often wandered the streets (or woods and fields) with relative freedom, and used that time to explore boundaries and congregate with friends. But now that this has been curtailed by protective parents, children are roaming in cyber space instead. While Twitter or Instagram might be new, what is not new is the idea that teens want to escape — even at Christmas.
但是，就如博伊德指出的，今天的孩子们在网络上做的事情不过是过去他们在真实世界里做的事情的延伸。过去，孩子们经常相对自由地在街道上（或者树林和田野中）漫游，并且花时间探索边界，与朋友们聚在一起。但现在，想保护孩子的父母限制了这些活动，因此孩子们转而在网络空间中漫游。尽管Twitter或者Instagram或许是新事物，但青少年哪怕是在圣诞节的时候都想要逃离，这种想法却并不是新鲜事。
Similarly, while the rise of social media might undermine the type of family traditions that grandparents say they love, it is also creating new links. Parents today can monitor what teenagers are saying to each other far more closely than before. Kids can talk — or Skype or FaceTime — with their relatives all over the world on Christmas Day. Family news or holiday snaps can be shared on social media platforms.
类似的，尽管社交媒体的兴起或许削弱了祖父母喜爱的一些家庭传统，但同时也创造了新的关联。当今的父母们可以更严密地监控青少年谈话的内容。孩子们可以通过Skype或者Facetime在圣诞节这天与世界各地的亲人聊天。家庭新闻或者节日照片能够在社交媒体平台上分享。
Then there is the innovation of sending “texts” to babies. To some people (such as my friend) that might sound bizarre; to others (like my friends’ children) it seems normal. Either way, the key point is this: in today’s cyber world we have extraordinary freedom to reshape our family web as we choose. And that is rather an inspiring development to consider — particularly as another holiday season draws to a close. 6
还有关于给婴儿发送“文字”的新颖做法。对一些人（比如我的朋友）来说，这听上去可能很怪异，但对另一些人（比如我朋友的子女）来说，这或许很正常。不管怎样，关键点是在今天的网络世界里，我们有很大的自由，按照自己的心意重塑家庭网络。这是一种值得我们思考的、令人相当鼓舞的新情况，尤其是在下一个节假日到来之前。