Sitting here in 2020 among the havoc of COVID-19 and everything this year has brought so far, I reflect on the past 20 years from a digital perspective and ask myself, “where have we taken ourselves?”

在2020年坐在COVID-19肆虐之年以及今年迄今为止所带来的一切之中，我从数字的角度反思过去20年，并问自己：“我们把自己带到了哪里？”

Since the change of the millennium, we have seen a leap in technology and the internet, but is it accurate to label that leap as “advancement?”

进入千禧年以来，我们看到了技术和互联网的飞跃，但是将这一飞跃标记为“进步”是准确的吗？

Of course, many great things have come out of the last 20 years as a result of the ever-tightening bond between humans and technology. No doubt, Apple’s iPad has changed more than one industry for the better including the medical field. And the impact tablets have had on people with Autism is incredible.

当然，由于人类与技术之间日益紧密的联系，过去20年中出现了许多伟大的事物。 毫无疑问，苹果的iPad已经改变了不止一个行业，包括医疗领域。 平板电脑对自闭症患者的影响是不可思议的。

But as I hope for even brighter future lit by more than device screens and smart bulbs, I can’t help but notice how much of the digital world is veering down a road darker than most might have anticipated. And, unless we develop greater awareness and appreciation of the fact that we are flesh-based humans and not the 1’s and 0’s that we spend so much of our time sending and receiving, then not even Alexa or Siri can save us.

但是，我希望设备屏幕和智能灯泡能为更多人带来更光明的未来，我不禁注意到数字世界中有多少人正朝着比大多数人预期的更黑暗的道路前进。 而且，除非我们对自己是肉体人类而不是花费大量时间发送和接收的1和0的事实有了更多的认识和认识，否则Alexa或Siri都无法拯救我们。

Let me take you back to November 2005. At 25 years old, I just purchased my first laptop — a Dell Latitude. It was probably my first significant online purchase. And one of my first bigger Black Friday splurge. The laptop came with Windows XP (you know the grassy field, blue sky wallpaper). I used that machine for everything. It was that same year when my contract web design picked up. While working a full-time job, I would also work on client projects when not attending classes at ITT Technical Institute (an institution no longer in existence).

让我带您回到2005年11月。25岁的时候，我刚刚购买了第一台笔记本电脑-Dell Latitude。 这可能是我第一次进行重大在线购买。 这是我第一个更大的黑色星期五挥霍行为之一。 笔记本电脑随附Windows XP(您知道草地，蓝天壁纸)。 我用那台机器做所有事情。 同年，我的合同网页设计开始出现。 在从事全职工作的同时，当我不参加ITT技术学院(一个不再存在的机构)上课时，我还将处理客户项目。

I begin to describe that time, not to give a personal history, but to explain how it was a time where technology and the internet were at a sweet spot.

我开始描述那个时间，不是为了讲述个人历史，而是要解释那是技术和互联网处于最佳状态的那个时代。

然后：年轻无辜 (Then: Young and Innocent)

After the dot com bubble of the late ’90s, people began to recognize the internet’s deeper value and made smarter investments with it. In the early 2000s social connections began to form online with Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook. Netflix began to grow in its DVDs-by-mail subscriptions. More and more e-commerce became possible with improvements to web technologies, shopping cart solutions, and payment processors.

在90年代末的互联网泡沫破灭之后，人们开始认识到互联网的深层价值，并进行了更明智的投资。 在2000年代初期，社交网络开始与Friendster，MySpace和Facebook建立在线联系。 Netflix的DVD邮件订阅开始增长。 随着网络技术，购物车解决方案和支付处理器的改进，越来越多的电子商务成为可能。

Web 2.0 and ”rich web apps” began to emerge where functionalities only seen on desktop applications were now possible on the web. One popular web technology for creating interactive content and rich web apps was Flash. Flash eventually reached its demise with its many accessibility and security flaws, but in its hay day, it provided a well of interactive experiences.

Web 2.0和“丰富的Web应用程序”开始出现，现在只有在桌面应用程序上才能看到的功能才可以在Web上实现。 Flash是一种用于创建交互式内容和富Web应用程序的流行Web技术。 Flash最终因其许多可访问性和安全漏洞而走向灭亡 ，但在干草时代，它提供了良好的交互体验。

Web design as a profession was still new. There were no website creators and content management systems were basic.

Web设计作为一种职业仍然是新的。 没有网站创建者，内容管理系统是基本的。

Digital marketing was still very new. There were search engines to try and rank high on, banner ads to run, press releases to write, and email newsletters to send, but not much else. The rules of the internet were clear for the most part.

数字营销还很新。 有搜索引擎可以尝试并排名靠前，可以投放横幅广告，可以撰写新闻稿，可以通过电子邮件发送新闻通讯，但是没有太多其他东西。 互联网的规则在大多数情况下都很明确。

Early to mid-2000s was probably also the time where marketing guru, Seth Godin had his most attention as he helped us rethink what modern marketing and branding meant. He and others helped the underdogs and the little fish believe that they could build just as much loyalty from customers as the Apple’s and Coca-Cola’s of the world

在2000年代初至中期，营销大师Seth Godin最为关注，因为他帮助我们重新思考了现代营销和品牌的含义。 他和其他人帮助弱者和小鱼相信他们可以建立起与苹果和可口可乐一样的客户忠诚度

Facebook was still in its infancy in 2005. Back then the feed or wall was a simple list of all your friends’ latest posts, nothing more. MySpace made for a lot of ugly profile pages, but it was fun to customize and get lost in what the things you could do with it. Back then you could still start a blog (with Blogger most likely) and not feel like you’re too late to the blogosphere.

Facebook在2005年仍处于起步阶段。那时的提要或公告只是所有朋友最新帖子的简单列表，仅此而已。 MySpace制作了很多丑陋的个人资料页面，但自定义很有趣，并且迷失了您可以使用它做的事情。 那时，您仍然可以启动博客(最有可能与Blogger一起)，并且不会觉得自己来不及进入博客圈。

Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007 which changed phones forever. Upgrading to the new model or the new OS was exciting. Apps were getting better and websites were learning how to adapt to these smaller screens.

史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)在2007年推出了iPhone，它永远改变了手机。 升级到新型号或新操作系统令人兴奋。 应用变得越来越好，网站正在学习如何适应这些较小的屏幕。

现在：叛乱少女时代 (Now: Rebellion Teenage Years)

Technology and the internet were advancing at a healthy pace from 2000 to 2010. Then things got more complicated and have been spiraling ever since.

从2000年到2010年，技术和互联网一直在健康发展。然后事情变得更加复杂，此后一直呈螺旋式增长。

Smartphones, smart devices, and the internet of things have been nothing short of an arms race. Small changes to a device or OS are given new version or model numbers while more and more micro-features and gimmicks crowd our interfaces. Giants like Amazon flood the market with every kind of smart device they can throw Alexa on. We’ve become over-connected and over notified now that we can get an alert notice on our phone, on our wrist, on our laptop, on our smart speaker, and where ever else we want all at the same time.

智能手机，智能设备和物联网简直就是一场军备竞赛。 对设备或操作系统的细微改动会赋予新版本或型号，而越来越多的微功能和头会挤占我们的界面。 像亚马逊这样的巨头，可以使用Alexa的各种智能设备充斥市场。 现在，我们已经变得过分联系和过度通知，我们可以在手机，手腕，笔记本电脑，智能扬声器以及我们想在任何其他地方获得的警报通知。

Nearly every website looks like the same these days and you can get that same look in a couple clicks with no designer or developer needed. Great, but now you look like all the other guys.

如今，几乎每个网站的外观都差不多，您只需单击几下即可获得相同的外观，而无需设计人员或开发人员。 太好了，但现在您看起来像其他所有人一样。

As a web designer or web developer, you have your choice of countless frameworks to build with that can be layered on top of one another. This hoarding of frameworks and libraries leads to bloated website size and slow load times.

作为Web设计师或Web开发人员，您可以选择无数个框架来构建，这些框架可以彼此叠加。 框架和库的这种ho积会导致网站规模过大和加载速度变慢。

Systems that power large enterprises have become bloated with years of patchwork and band-aids instead of taking the proper steps to craft an acceptable and reliable experience.

多年来，为大型企业提供支持的系统变得肿不已，而没有采取适当的步骤来制造出可接受的和可靠的体验，而是采用了多年的拼凑和创可贴。

For as long as the internet has been around, how well have we done to make the web accessible to all people with an internet connection? I’m talking mostly about people with disabilities. Try using your website with only your keyboard. Or try looking at it after you’ve blurred it as a person with low vision would see it. We left this for the government websites to worry about, but what we’re seeing is more and more sites getting called out for not following accessibility standards.

只要互联网已经存在，我们在使互联网连接到所有人的网络访问方面做得如何？ 我主要是在谈论残疾人。 尝试仅通过键盘使用您的网站。 或者，在使视物模糊后，视力弱者会看到它。 我们将其留给政府网站担心，但是我们看到的是越来越多的网站因不遵循可访问性标准而受到号召 。

Amazon has gotten too big. It reminds me of B&L from Pixar’s Wall-E. Do we need to get everything from one place? From a business perspective, I admire that they could grow as large as they have, but at some point, they missed the lesson in authenticity. There’s something to be said for a successful business to want to stay small so they can stay authentic and connected to their customers. Small is relative here. A company can be much smaller than Amazon is today and still, be large and wildly successful. Disney failed in this lesson as well. Buying up enormous entertainment franchises and studios is not what old Walt probably had in mind. Apple is heading this direction as well as they throw their hat in the online streaming entertainment business.

亚马逊太大了。 这让我想起了皮克斯Wall-E的B＆L 。 我们需要一站式提供一切吗？ 从业务角度来看，我佩服它们可以扩展到最大，但是在某些时候，它们错过了真实性方面的教训。 对于一个成功的企业来说，要保持小规模，以便他们保持真实并与客户保持联系，这是有话可说的。 小是相对的。 公司规模可能比今天的亚马逊小得多，而且规模仍然很大，而且取得了巨大的成功。 迪斯尼在这一课上也失败了。 老沃尔特可能并不打算购买庞大的娱乐特许经营权和电影制片厂。 苹果公司正在朝着这个方向发展，同时他们也将目光投向了在线流媒体娱乐业务。

The big get bigger and the small get smaller. I’m not suggesting we redistribute wealth or anything, but just because a company can buy up all their competition, doesn’t mean they should.

大变大，小变小。 我并不是在建议我们重新分配财富或其他任何东西，而是仅仅因为一家公司可以买断所有竞争产品，并不意味着他们应该这样做。

Social media has become nearly a monopoly where very few have any chance of capturing market share away from the likes of Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. So many people use these sites and nearly all websites and apps connected to them are tracking your online activity.

社交媒体已几乎成为一种垄断，几乎没有人有机会从Facebook，Instagram或Twitter这样的市场中夺取市场份额。 如此多的人使用这些网站，几乎所有与它们连接的网站和应用程序都在跟踪您的在线活动 。

It’s not just the social media giants who are using your behavior to sharpen their aim to throw ads and whatever else they want at you, but it’s also much of the marketing and advertising world. “Personalization” is the new accepted practice and has taken much of their guesswork out of showing you what you might like. Machine learning follows you around from device to device, website to website, app to app building a profile that matches you to the content it feels you’re more likely to act on.

不仅社交媒体巨头在利用您的行为来提高他们投放广告的目标以及他们想要向您提供的其他任何东西，而且营销和广告界也是如此。 “个性化”是一种新接受的做法，它的大部分猜测都是出于向您展示您的喜好而已。 机器学习可让您从设备到设备，从网站到网站，从一个应用程序到另一个应用程序建立一个配置文件，该配置文件使您与您觉得自己更有可能执行的内容相匹配。

The ironic thing is that most people let social media, advertisers, and marketers come in and invade their privacy.

具有讽刺意味的是，大多数人都允许社交媒体，广告商和营销人员进入并侵犯他们的隐私。

Public social media feeds have become catalogs for predators. Kids are far too vulnerable with social media apps that default to public profiles. Facebook started with the right idea: a closed network made up of only the people you allowed in it. Social media should have kept to the same model. Your profile starts as private and you and the friends you allow see each other. I’m not saying that model is bulletproof, but it’s better than public feeds of all our vulnerable kids on display for anyone to see.

公共社交媒体提要已成为掠食者的目录。 孩子们对于默认为公开个人资料的社交媒体应用太脆弱了。 Facebook的想法是正确的：封闭的网络仅由您允许的人员组成。 社交媒体应该保持相同的模式。 您的个人资料以私人身份开始，并且您和允许的朋友可以互相看到。 我并不是说这种模型是防弹的，但是它比我们所展示的所有弱势儿童的公共供稿要好得多，任何人都可以看到。

There’s a reason social media and the gaming industry are so interested in your kids. It’s all too easy nowadays to exploit the addiction forming parts of young brains. It’s not just kids that are susceptible to the psychological games our apps and games play on us. Leveling up in a game, earning a badge, getting a like or a comment, or even something as simple as seeing that you have new email to read — every little win like these stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain and your brain can’t get enough. So your kids especially get more and more addicted to their devices and games.

社交媒体和游戏行业对您的孩子如此感兴趣是有原因的。 如今，利用成瘾形成年轻人脑的一部分太容易了。 不仅仅是孩子容易受到我们的应用程序和游戏在我们身上玩的心理游戏的影响 。 在游戏中升级，获得徽章，获得赞或评论，甚至只是看到您有新的电子邮件就这么简单，像这样的每一次小小的胜利都会激发您大脑的愉悦中心，而您的大脑无法得到足够的。 因此，您的孩子尤其会越来越沉迷于其设备和游戏。

There’s a mountain of rumors and theories about how our smartphones and devices are constantly listening to us, how our TVs can emit specific frequencies our phone can hear that are then sent back to the TV advertiser, how the government is embedded in leadership at Google and Facebook, how voting outcomes are a result of manipulating social media behaviors, and on and on.

关于我们的智能手机和设备如何不断聆听我们的声音，电视如何发出电话可以听到的特定频率，然后将其发送回电视广告商， 政府如何嵌入Google的领导层以及Facebook ，投票结果是如何操纵社交媒体行为的，等等。

To feel like we’re not constantly being monitored or tracked, we have to install special browsers, and extensions, use offshore email providers, and pay for our internet to be routed through VPNs. It seems not only are we protecting ourselves from hackers but big brother as well.

要感觉我们不会受到持续监视或跟踪，我们必须安装特殊的浏览器和扩展程序，使用离岸电子邮件提供商 ，并支付通过VPN路由我们的互联网的费用。 看来我们不仅在保护自己免受黑客攻击，而且也在保护自己。

Our lives have gotten so connected to the internet and devices, that we give up privacy. It’s just easier to give in to the urge to constantly check our phones and to ignore the ads that follow us around. At this point, is the internet just too big and there’s just too much data about you floating around for anyone to do anything about it?

我们的生活已经与互联网和设备建立了如此紧密的联系，以至于我们放弃了隐私。 屈服于不断检查我们的手机，而忽略跟随我们的广告的冲动更容易。 在这一点上，互联网是否太大了，是否有太多关于您的数据供任何人做任何事情？

I don’t think that’s true. It’s not too late to improve and correct society’s digital course.

我认为那不是真的。 改善和纠正社会的数字化课程还为时不晚。

We need to ask more questions about why things are the way they are.

我们需要问更多问题，以了解事情为什么如此。

We need to question privacy policies.

我们需要质疑隐私政策。

We need to question how the companies we affiliate with are funded.

我们需要质疑与我们合作的公司的资金来源。

We need to ask if our company websites are accessible to people with disabilities.

我们需要询问残疾人是否可以访问我们的公司网站。

We need to question why some of our digital products are so complicated.

我们需要质疑为什么我们的某些数字产品如此复杂。

We need to question if we need that smart device.

我们需要质疑我们是否需要该智能设备。

We need to question complicated digital ecosystems.

我们需要质疑复杂的数字生态系统。

We need to question if we are dependent on Google’s ecosystem of products and services.

我们需要质疑我们是否依赖Google的产品和服务生态系统。

We need to question what company big or small gets our loyalty.

我们需要质疑什么规模的公司会获得我们的忠诚度。

We need to question how much time we spend on our phones.

我们需要质疑我们在手机上花费了多少时间。

We need to question that app or social media network our kid is interested in joining.

我们需要质疑我们的孩子有兴趣加入的应用程序或社交媒体网络。

We need to question how the internet works.

我们需要质疑互联网的运作方式。

We need to question if our data and home networks are protected.

我们需要质疑我们的数据和家庭网络是否受到保护。

While I don’t want to be stuck in 2005 using the same Dell laptop, I do want us to advance in communication and technology. I want us to be authentic and remember that we are humans. I want us to build things for the sake of providing real value and not just to fill the ether with digital noise. I want ALL businesses and government officials to respect privacy, the safety of our children, and the vulnerability of mental and social health.

虽然我不想在2005年使用同一台Dell笔记本电脑，但我希望我们在通讯和技术上取得进步。 我希望我们是真实的，并记住我们是人类。 我希望我们构建事物是为了提供真实的价值，而不仅仅是用数字噪声填充以太。 我希望所有企业和政府官员尊重隐私权，孩子的安全以及心理和社会健康的脆弱性。

I have listed below all the links that I shared throughout the text above:

我在上面的文本中列出了我共享的所有链接：

iHelp for Autism, SF Weekly, Aug. 11, 2010

iHelp for Autism ，《科学周刊》，2010年8月11日

Adobe Flash Cut-Off Will Kill Millions Of Websites, Forbes, Jun. 22, 2020

Adobe Flash截止日期将杀死数百万个网站 ，《福布斯》，2020年6月22日

The Ultimate Guide to Amazon Devices, Creative Bloq, Jul. 14, 2019

亚马逊设备终极指南 ，Creative Bloq，2019年7月14日

Here’s Why All Website Designs Look the Same Now, Digital Information World, Jun. 17, 2020

这就是为什么所有网站设计现在看起来都一样的原因 ，数字信息世界，2020年6月17日

The Growth of Webpage Size, KeyCDN, Oct. 4, 2018

网页大小的增长 ，KeyCDN，2018年10月4日

Web Accessibility Lawsuits: What’s the Current Landscape?, Essential Accessibility, May 6, 2020

网络可访问性诉讼：当前形势如何？ ，基本可访问性，2020年5月6日

How Ads Follow You Around the Internet, Vox, Feb. 3, 2020

广告如何在互联网上跟随您 ，Vox，2020年2月3日

The Tech Industry’s War on Kids, Richard Freed, Mar. 12, 2018

科技行业的儿童战争 ，理查德·弗里德，2018年3月12日

Are Our Phones Listening to Us?, BBC News, Sep. 9, 2019

我们的电话在听我们说话吗？ ，BBC新闻，2019年9月9日

How the CIA Made Google, Nafeez Ahmed, Jan. 22, 2015

CIA如何造就Google ，纳菲兹·艾哈迈德(Nafeez Ahmed)，2015年1月22日

The Ad Blocker — A Secret Weapon Against Annoying Ads, Firefox

广告拦截器-对抗讨厌的广告的秘密武器 ，Firefox

ProtonMail — Secure Email Based in Switzerland

ProtonMail —位于瑞士的安全电子邮件

The Best VPN Services for 2020, PC Mag, Jul. 27, 2020

2020年最佳VPN服务 ，PC Mag，2020年7月27日

Cover photo: by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

封面照片： 马修·亨利 ( Matthew Henry)在《 Unsplash》上