"Web 2.0 自殺機"教你瞬間脫離社交網絡
If your online life is taking over your real life, it could be time to erase yourself from the internet.
A Dutch company has made a programme which can destroy all posts and personal information from your Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Twitter accounts.
The advantage of the tastefully-named Web 2.0 Suicide Machine is its speed.
Instead of spending nearly ten hours erasing things manually, you can go offline in just 52 minutes.
Some 3,000 people have already used the free programme, with another 90,000 on the waiting list. You hand over your passwords and watch as your Tweets and Facebook friends disappear - until there's just an empty screen.
Last month, one of the country's most eminent brain scientists warned that an obsession with social network.ng sites and computer games may be changing the way people’s minds work.
Oxford University expert Susan Greenfield believes constant computer and internet use may be ‘rewiring the brain’, shortening attention spans, encouraging instant gratification and causing a loss of empathy.
She said: ‘For me, this is almost as important as climate change.
‘Whilst of course it doesn’t threaten the existence of the planet like climate change, I think the quality of our existence is threatened – and the kind of people we might be in the future.’
The neuroscientist believes technology may be behind the ‘alarming’ rise in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the growth in the use of anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin.
But Baroness Greenfield said that although benefits of playing computer games may include a higher IQ and better memory, social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook may hamper empathy.
Using search engines to find facts may hinder our ability to learn, while computer games in which it is always possible to start again, may make us more reckless.
如果你沉溺於網絡生活，而忽略了現實世界，那你真該在互聯網隱退了。
荷蘭一家公司最新研製出一款程序，可銷燬用戶在Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace和Twitter賬戶中的所有帖子和個人信息。
這款名爲“Web 2.0 自殺機”的程序以速度著稱。
該軟件可在52秒內讓用戶徹底“下線”，而手工清除信息耗時近10小時。
約有3千名用戶已體驗了這款免費程序，另有9萬名用戶還處於申請階段。用戶提交密碼即可看到Tweets和Facebook賬戶內好友消失，直至清屏。
荷蘭一位著名腦部科學家上月提醒稱，沉溺於社交網站和電腦遊戲可能改變人的思維方式。
牛津大學專家蘇珊•格林菲爾德認爲，持續使用電腦和網絡會“重裝大腦”、使人注意力不集中、鼓勵“即時滿足”、並使人喪失與他人的共鳴。
她說：“對我來說，這和氣候變化一樣重要。”
“這當然不會像氣候變化那樣威脅地球的生存，但我想這威脅到了人類的生活質量，以及人類的未來。”
這位神經學家認爲，科技正是多動症患者人數、以及抗多動症藥物利他林使用量飆升的幕後黑手。
但格林菲爾德女爵稱，儘管玩電腦遊戲有可能提高智商並增強記憶力，但Twitter和Facebook等社交網站卻會阻礙人們之間的情感共鳴。
使用搜索引擎查找信息會阻礙我們的學習能力，總可以重新開始的電腦遊戲會使人做事更魯莽。
Vocabulary:
instant gratification: 即時滿足，希望自己的願望馬上得到滿足。
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: 多動症，注意力缺陷障礙
Baroness: 男爵夫人，女爵
