大学英语综合教程 第四册 Unit 6B

[00:00.00]Come on,admit it-you like living at breakneck speed.
[00:05.64]LIFE IN THE FAST LANE                                             by James Gleick
[00:11.13]We are in a rush. We are making haste.A compression of time characterzies many of our lives.
[00:19.80]As time-use reserchers look around,they see a rushing and scurrying everywhere.
[00:27.53]Sometimes cultureresembles "one big stomped anthill," say John P.Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey in their book Time for Life
[00:38.95](1) Instantaneity rules.Pollsters use electronic devices during poilitical speeches to measure opinions on the wing
[00:49.19]before they have been fully formed;fast-food restaurants add express lanes.Even reading to children is underpressure.
[00:59.43]The volume One-Minute bedtime Stories cinsists of traditional stories that can be ready by a busy parent in only one minute
[01:10.14]There are places and objects that signify impatience.The door-close button in elevators,
[01:18.71]so often a placebo used to distract riders to whom ten seconds seems an eternity.Speed-dial buttons on telephones.
[01:30.41]Remote controls,which have caused an acceleration in the pace of films and television commercials.
[01:38.17]Time is a gentle deity,said Sophocles.Perhaps it was,for him.These days it cracks the whip.We humans have chosen speed.
[01:51.02]and we thrive on it-more than we generally admit.Our ability to work and play fast gives us power.It thrills us.
[02:01.84]And if haste is the accelerator pedal,multitasding is overdrive.These days it is possible to drive, eat
[02:12.55]listen to a book and talk on the phone-all at once,if you dare.David Feldman,in New York,
[02:21.43]schedules his tooth flossing to coincide with his regular browsing of online discussion groups.
[02:29.47]He has learned to hit PageDown with his pinkie.Mike Holderness,in London,watches TV with captioning
[02:39.48]so that he can keep the sound off and listen to the unrelated music of his choice.An entire class of technologies
[02:50.24]is dedicated to the futherance of multitasking.Car phones.Bookstands on exercise machines.Waterproof shower radios
[03:02.10]Not so long ago, for most people,listening to the radion was a single task activity.
[03:09.83]Now it is rare for a person to listen to the radio and do nothing else.
[03:16.23]Even TV has lost its command of our foreground.In so many households the Tvjust stays on,
[03:26.08]like a noisy light bulb,while the life of the family passes back and forth in its shimmering glow.
[03:34.33](3)A sense of well-being comes with this saturation of parallel pathways in the brain.
[03:41.00]We choose mania over bored boredom every time.
[03:46.14]"Humans have never,ever opted for slower,"point out the historian Stephen Kern.
[03:54.08]We catch the fever-and the fever feels good.We live in the buzz."It has gotten to the point where my days,
[04:04.90]crammed with all sorts of activities,feel like an Olympic endurance event:the everydaython,
[04:13.78]confesses Jay Walljasper in the Utne Reader.
[04:19.37]All humanity has not succumbed equally,of course.If you make haste,you probably make it in the technology-driven world
[04:29.09]Sociologists have also found that increasing wealth and increasing deucation bring a sense of tension about time
[04:38.96]We believe that we posses too little of it.No wonder Ivan Seidenberg,an American telecommunications executive,
[04:49.67]jokes about the mythical Day Doubler program his customers seem to want:Using sophistiated time-mapping
[05:00.43]and compression techniques,Daydoubler gives you access to 48 hours each and every day.At the higher numbers
[05:10.80]DayDoubler becomes less stable,
[05:15.04]and you run the risk of a temporal crash in which everything from the beginning of time to he present