世界关闭电脑日,你准备好了吗?

The next World Shutdown Day is on 22 March 2008. Can you do it?

Advertised as one of the “biggest global experiments ever to take place on the Internet,”the idea is to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day. What will happen if we all participate? If we really do keep off the computers for 24 hours, all e-mails will go unanswered, and blogs won’t be updated. During lunch breaks, people might talk to their co-workers or go for a walk outside, or buy a newspaper. At home, computer games will be replaced by family discussion. Yet, the real issue is how addicted[痴迷的] are we all to our computers?

The idea for World Shutdown Day came from a Canadian computer programmer[程序师], Dennis Bystrov and his friend Michael Taylor. Bystrov felt lonely, even though he constantly socialized[打交道] with people on the Internet when he wasn’t working. He complained to Taylor about the possibility of getting away from his computer even just for one day. At first, Taylor thought it was a crazy idea for World Shutdown Day. But eventually, the idea became an Internet movement involving tens of thousands of people.

“It’s an experiment,?Taylor explained. “The goal is to find out how other people feel about their computer-dependency[依赖]. And to discover how many people would be willing to cut the cord[摆脱依赖] for a 24-hour period.省略, includes two buttons that allow you to vote on whether you can or can’t give up your computer for a day. As of[到……时为止] press time, roughly 48,000 people had already confirmed: “I CAN.”But another 7,000 had confessed to their powerlessness[无能力] over the plastic-and-metal overlord[霸主].

However, the significance of World Shutdown Day is more than “yes”or “no.”Taylor wants people to think about their computer dependence, and where it may be heading. In five or ten years, “We’ll spend too much time in the virtual[虚拟的] world and forget about what’s happening in the real world,?said the inventor.

Probably you will get a hint[暗示] from this observation. Recently, one of Bystrov’s friends in Russia had a power failure. His two kids were playing with a game console[操纵板] and a PC. But they had no clue what to do without electricity. Their parents suggested they try playing hide and seek[捉迷藏], but they couldn’t figure out which game controllers it required.省略. If you feel a sense of euphoria[欣快症] at your computer, you crave[渴望] more computer time, and can’t tear yourself away from your computer, you could be an addict. Also, signs like dry eyes, missed meals and “failure to attend to personal hygiene[卫生]”could point to a problem, the site says.

So it’s probably the right time for cyber-addicts to unplug[拔去] for 24 hours on World Shutdown Day.省略上有两个按钮，让人们投票选出他们能否在一天内放弃使用电脑。到截稿时间为止，大约有4.省略的一份清单所示，电脑依赖症的症状显而易见。如果你在电脑前感到欣喜若狂，渴望更多时间使用电脑，甚至无法离开电脑，那你就可能是过度沉湎于电脑了。另外，网站认为如眼睛干涩、忘记吃饭以及“个人卫生差”等征兆都可说明同样问题。

那么或许这正是时候让网迷们在世界关闭电脑日当天切断电脑电源24小时了吧。