234 Children Stride Adulthood
234 儿童成人化
About six years ago I was eating lunch in a restaurant in New York City when a woman and a young boy sat down at the next table, I couldn’t help overhearing parts of their conversation. At one point the woman asked, “So, how have you been?” And the boy — who could not have been more than seven or eight years old — replied. “Frankly, I’ve been feeling a little depressed lately.”
六年前，我在纽约市一家饭店吃饭时，一名妇女和一个小男孩坐在我的邻桌。我无意之中听到了他们的部分谈话。当时那位妇女问：“那么，你最近过得怎么样?”那个最多不超过七八岁的男孩答道：“坦白地说，最近我感到有点压抑。”
This incident stuck in my mind because it confirmed my growing belief that children are changing. As far as I can remember, my friends and I didn’t find out we were “depressed”, that is, in low spirits, until we were in high school.
这件事深深地印在我的脑海里，因为它加强了我的一个日益增强的观念：孩子们在发生变化。在我的记忆中，我和我的同伴们在上高中之前还没感到过“压抑。”
Undoubtedly a change in children has increased steadily in recent years. Children don’t seem childlike anymore. Children speak more like adults, dress more like adults and behave more like adults than they used to.
近年来，孩子们发生变化的迹象越来越多。孩子们看起来不再像孩子。他们的说话，穿衣，举止比从前的孩子更像成人。
Whether this is good or bad is difficult to say, but it certainly is different. Childhood as it once was no longer exists. Why?
很难说这是好是坏，但这确实与以前不一样。过去的那种童年已经不复存在了。为什么？
Human development is depended not only on born biological states, but also on patterns of gaining social knowledge. Movement from one social role to another usually involves learning the secrets of the new social positions. Children have always been taught adult secrets, but slowly and in stages; traditionally, we tell sixth graders things we keep hidden from fifth graders.
人们的成长基础不仅仅要靠自己天生的生理状况，同时也要靠他们获取社会知识的模式。从一种社会角色转变为另一种角色，通常都要求个体去了解新的社会角色的“秘密”。人们一直把成人的秘密教给孩子们，这通常都是慢慢地，分阶段进行的。通常我们对六年级小孩说的事情就不会让五年级的孩子知道。
In the last 30 years, however, a secret-revelation machine has been equipped in 98 percent of American homes. It is called television. Television passes information to all viewers alike, whether they are children or adults. Unable to resist the temptation , many children turn their attention from printed texts to the less challenging, more attractive moving pictures.
但在最近30年，98%的美国家庭中都安装了一种揭示秘密的机器——那就是电视机。它不加区分地把信息传送给所有的观众，不管观众是成人还是儿童。因为无法抵御诱惑，很多孩子都会将注意力从书本上转移到这更生动，易懂的活动图像上。
Communication through print, as a matter of fact, allows for a great deal of control over the social information which children will gain. Children must read simple books before they can read complex materials.
事实上，通过印刷品来交流，能在很大程度上控制孩子所能获取的社会信息。读和写涉及一系列复杂的必须加以记忆和练习的符号编码。孩子们在阅读复杂的读物之前，必须先阅读简单的图书。