資訊滿天飛，意義又何在？

On my morning bus into town， teenagers and grown-ups alike sit there staring into their little infinity machine： a pocket-sized window into more words than any of us could ever read， more music than we could ever listen to， more pictures of people getting naked than we could ever get off to. Until a few years ago， it was unthinkable， this 1）cornucopia of information. Those of us who were already more or less adults when it arrived wonder how different it must be to be young now. “How can any kid be bored when they have Google？” I remember hearing someone ask.

The question came back to me recently when I read about a 23-year-old British woman sent to prison for sending rape threats to a feminist campaigner over Twitter. Her explanation for her actions was that she was “off her face” and“bored”. It was an ugly case， but not an isolated one. 2）Internet trolling has started to receive scholarly attention—in such places as the Journal of Politeness Research and its counterpart， the Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict—and “boredom” is a frequently cited motive for such behaviour.

It is not only among the 3）antisocial creatures who 4）lurk under the bridges of the Internet that boredom persists. We might no longer have the excuse of a lack of stimulation， but the vocabulary of 5）tedium is not passing into history： the experience remains familiar to most of us. This leads to a question that goes deep into Internet culture and the assumptions with which our infinity machines are packaged： exactly what is it that we are looking for？

“Information wants to be free” declared 6）Stewart Brand， 30 years ago now. Cut loose from its original context， this phrase became one of the defining 7）slogans of Internet politics. With idealism and 8）dedication， the partisans of the network seek to liberate information from governments and corporations， who of course have their own ideas about the opportunities its collection and control might afford.

But before there was a web for search engines to index， Brand had co-founded the WELL （the“Whole Earth Lectronic Link”）， a bulletin board launched from the Whole Earth offices in 1985. Its members pushed through the limitations of the available technology to discover something resembling a 9）virtual community. At the core of this group were veterans of 10）the Farm， one of the few hippie communes to outlast the early years of idealism and chaos.

Journalist John Markoff， himself an early contributor to the WELL， gave a broader history of how the counterculture shaped personal computing in his book What the Dormouse Said （2005）. The Internet needed a story that would make sense to those who would never be interested in the 11）TCP/IP， and the counterculture survivors gave it one： turn on， tune in， drop out. In this new version of the fable， information took the place of 12）LSD， the magic substance whose consumption could transform the world.

The trouble is that information doesn’t nourish us. Worse， in the end， it turns out to be boring. Though， however boring， knowledge can give rise to meaning. And if there is an antidote to boredom， it is not information but meaning.

Information is perhaps the rawest material in the process out of which we arrive at meaning. But the journey from information to meaning involves more than simply 13）filtering the signal from the noise. And boredom is not an 14）inherent quality of the human condition， but rather it has a history， which began around the 18th century and embraced the whole Western world， and which presents an evolution from the 18th to the 21st century.

When the Internet arrived， it seemed to promise a liberation from the boredom of industrial society， a 15）psychedelic jet-spray of information into every otherwise tedious corner of our lives. In fact， at its best， it is something else： a remarkable helper in the search for meaningful connections. But if the deep roots of boredom are in a lack of meaning， rather than a shortage of stimuli， and if there is a subtle， multilayered process by which information can give rise to meaning， then the constant flow of information to which we are becoming habituated cannot deliver on such a promise. At best， it allows us to distract ourselves with the potentially endless 16）deferral of clicking from one link to another. Yet sooner or later we wash up downstream in some far corner of the web， wondering where the time went. The experience of being carried on these currents is quite different to the patient， unpredictable process that leads towards meaning.

The latter requires， among other things， space for reflection—allowing what we have already absorbed to settle， waiting to see what patterns emerge. Find the corners of our lives in which we can unplug， the days on which it is possible to refuse the urgency of the inbox， the activities that will not be rushed. Switch off the infinity machine， not forever， nor because there is anything bad about it， but out of recognition of our own 17）finitude： there is only so much information any of us can bear， and we cannot go fishing in the stream if we are drowning in it. As any survivor of the 1960s counterculture could tell us， it is best to treat magic substances with respect—and to be careful about the 18）dosage.

每天上午乘坐公共汽車進(jìn)城，我都會(huì)看到，坐在車上的大人小孩都盯著手中那無(wú)遠(yuǎn)弗屆的小設(shè)備：一個(gè)口袋大小的窗口，潛藏著多不勝讀的信息，多不勝聽的音樂，還有目不暇接的裸露照片。直到幾年前，能獲得這么龐大的信息量簡(jiǎn)直不可思議。我們這些在信息時(shí)代到來時(shí)已然長(zhǎng)大的人會(huì)想，有了這些科技，孩子們的生活肯定是大不相同了。“有了谷歌，哪有小孩還會(huì)無(wú)聊？”我記得聽誰(shuí)這么問過。

這個(gè)問題在我最近讀到某個(gè)報(bào)道時(shí)又引起一番反思。一名23歲的英國(guó)女子因通過推特微博向一位女權(quán)主義活動(dòng)家發(fā)送強(qiáng)奸威脅而被捕入獄。她對(duì)自己此種行為的解釋是自己“喝醉了”，覺得“窮極無(wú)聊”。這是個(gè)惡劣的案子，但卻并不鮮見。網(wǎng)絡(luò)黑子這種現(xiàn)象已經(jīng)開始受到學(xué)者們的注意——在諸如《禮貌研究期刊》和與之相似的《語(yǔ)言攻擊與沖突期刊》中，“無(wú)聊”是一個(gè)頻繁被引用來解釋此類行為的動(dòng)機(jī)。

其實(shí)不僅僅是潛伏在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)橋底下伺機(jī)出擊的反社會(huì)群體悶喊無(wú)聊。我們或許不能再以缺乏刺激為借口，但是單調(diào)乏味這個(gè)詞卻并未遁入歷史：我們大多數(shù)人還是常感生活乏悶。由此產(chǎn)生了一個(gè)疑問，其涉及網(wǎng)絡(luò)文化的深層意義，直指這些無(wú)界電子設(shè)備捆綁并存的概念思維：我們到底在尋找什么？

“資訊渴望自由”——30年前斯圖爾特·布蘭德曾這么說道。抽離其原文本背景，這句話已儼然成為網(wǎng)絡(luò)政治的典型口號(hào)之一。秉承著理想主義和奉獻(xiàn)精神，網(wǎng)絡(luò)上各門各派試圖把信息從政府和企業(yè)的桎梏中解放出來，當(dāng)然，政府和企業(yè)對(duì)于信息收集和信息控制所能提供的機(jī)遇有著自己的見解。……