If you find yourself unable to go more than 15 minutes without reaching into your pocket, pulling out your smartphone and checking your e-mail or micro blog, don’t freak out. You are hardly alone.
如果你發現自己無法自控，每隔不到十五分鐘就想把手伸入口袋，拿出手機查看電郵或微博，別擔心，這種狀況并非只出現在你一人身上。
A recent survey in the scientific journal Personal and *UbiquitousComputing shows that smartphone users have developed what the researchers call “checking habit” – repetitive checks of e-mail and other applications.
科學期刊《個人或普適計算》最近最新調查結果表明，智能手機用戶已染上反復用手機查看電郵和其他應用程序的習慣，研究人員稱之為“查收習慣”。
The checks typically lasted less than 30 seconds and were often done within 10 minutes of each other.
這種檢查舉動通常持續不到三十秒，但常常每十分鐘就會進行一次。
On average, the study subjects check their phones 34 times a day. And the freaky part is that they don’t even realize they are doing it.
在該研究中，被調查者平均每天檢查手機34次。令人驚訝的是，他們經常沒有意識到他們的行為。
“I hadn’t told my hand to reach out for the phone. It seemed to be doing it all on its own,” wrote Elizabeth Cohen, a medical correspondent for CNN who watched her right hand sneaking away from her side to grab her phone sitting on the table at dinner with friends.
美國有線電視新聞網醫學記者伊麗莎白？？科恩在與朋友聚餐時看到自己的右手離開身邊滑向了桌上的手機，她說，“我并沒有要伸手去拿手機，似乎它自己就這么做了。”
Loren Frank, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco （UCSF）， explains that checking smartphones is rewarding in some way.
來自加利福尼亞大學舊金山分校的神經學者羅仁？？弗蘭克解釋道，在某種程度上，檢查手機是有好處的。
“Each time you get an e-mail, it’s a small jolt, a positive feedback that you’re an important person,” Frank told CNN.
弗蘭克在接受CNN記者采訪時表示：“每次你收到一封郵件都會小興奮一下，這個積極的反饋證明你是個受重視的人。”
Once the brain becomes accustomed to this positive feedback, reaching out for the phone becomes an automatic action you don’t even think about consciously, said Frank.
弗蘭克認為，一旦大腦習慣了這種積極的反饋，伸手去拿手機就變成了一種下意識的自主運動。
Professor Clifford Nass of Stanford University added that constantly consulting your smartphone is also “an attempt to not have to think hard but feel like you are doing something”。
來自斯坦福大學的克利福德？？納斯教授補充說，人們試圖用不停查閱智能手機的方式來體會不必過度思考也能感覺正在做事的感覺。
However, this habit can cause problems. Studies show that whenever you take a break from what you are doing to check your smartphone, it is hard to go back to your original task, according to Adam Gazzaley, a neurologist at UCSF.
但加利福尼亞大學舊金山分校的神經學家亞當？？賈澤樂則表示，這種習慣能夠引發一些麻煩。研究表明，每當你停下手頭工作中，開小差檢查一番自己的智能手機，之后你就很難再回到原來的工作狀態中了。
That’s not the worst. A survey by South Korean marriage consulting agency Duo earlier this year shows that smartphones are killing intimate relationships, reports The Korea Herald.
而這還不是最糟的。《韓國先驅報》報道，韓國婚姻咨詢公司Duo今年年初所做的一項調查結果顯示，智能手機正在成為親密戀情的殺手。
About half of the respondents said they had had fights with their boyfriend or girlfriend because of smartphones. And 32.8 percent of them fought about smartphone obsession.
近半數的被調查者表示，他們曾因為智能手機與另一半爭吵。其中32.8%的人吵架原因是過度迷戀手機。
“It makes me bored and annoyed when my boyfriend keeps staring at his smartphone on a date,” 27-year-old office worker Han Hyung-young told the newspaper.
27歲的白領韓慧洋（音譯）告訴記者：“每次和男友約會時，他都一直盯著手機看，這讓我感到特別無聊，很讓人生氣。”
And bad habits die hard.
然而惡習難改。
“I’ve told him （my boyfriend） that I hate it when he reads it at dinner, and he’ll stop for a while, but then he keeps doing it,” complained an Internet user named Noelle on The Non-Consumer Advocate, a blog about frugality and environmentalism.
一位名叫諾艾爾的網友在關于節儉與環保的博客“非消費者倡議”上抱怨道：“我已經告訴我男朋友，我討厭他吃飯時看手機，而他只是放下手機一小會兒，沒過多久他便又拿起來看了。”
To get rid of the checking habit, Cohen suggests establishing phone-free times and zones.
為了改掉這種“查看習慣”，科恩建議可以設立無手機時段以及無手機區。
【相關詞匯】
freaky奇怪的，令人害怕的 itchy不安的
jolt使人振奮的事 neurologist神經學者
neuroscientist神經學家 repetitive反復的
smartphone智能手機 sneak偷偷溜走
ubiquitous普遍存在的
