原文標(biāo)題：
Mental health
The jury is still out
Girls’ mental health is getting worse. Proving a link to smartphones is hard
心理健康
沒有定論
女孩的心理健康越來越差，很難證明這與智能手機有關(guān)聯(lián)

Suicide rates for girls are rising. Are smartphones to blame?
Hospitalisation rates for self-harm have increased by 140% since 2010
女孩的自殺率正在上升。智能手機是罪魁禍?zhǔn)讍幔?br>自2010年以來，自殘住院率增加了140%

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IN 2017 JEAN TWENGE, a professor at San Diego State, wrote an essay entitled “Have smartphones destroyed a generation?” Her answer, “yes”, was provocative at the time. Now, it is a common refrain.
2017年，圣地亞哥州立大學(xué)教授珍·特文格寫了一篇文章，題為 "智能手機是否摧毀了一代人？" 她的答案是 "是"，可謂轟動一時?，F(xiàn)在，這說法已司空見慣。

[Paragraph 2]
Spurred by recent data showing a rise in depression among American teenagers, both the British and American press have barraged readers with stories about social media ravaging young people’s mental health.
受近期數(shù)據(jù)表明美國青少年抑郁癥增多的影響，英國和美國媒體向讀者紛紛報道社交媒體破壞年輕人心理健康的故事。

Jonathan Haidt of New York University has compared social media to waterboarding.
紐約大學(xué)的喬納森.海特將社交媒體比作水刑。

The public has noticed: in a recent survey, 53% of Americans said that social media were mostly or fully responsible for increasing teenagers’ depression.
公眾已經(jīng)注意到：在最近的一項調(diào)查中，53%的美國人認(rèn)為社交媒體對青少年的抑郁癥增加負有主要或全部責(zé)任。

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Smartphones went global long ago. If they are causing an epidemic of sadness, evidence should appear around the world.

智能手機很早就走向了全球。如果他們造成了抑郁癥的流行，那么世界各地應(yīng)該會出現(xiàn)證據(jù)。

Data support the claim that young people, particularly girls, have deteriorating mental health. But they leave room for doubt that mobiles are the main culprit.
數(shù)據(jù)證實了“年輕人（特別是女孩子）心理健康狀況惡化”的說法。但對“手機是罪魁禍?zhǔn)住钡恼f法表示懷疑。

[Paragraph 4]

Mental health is hard to measure. Questionnaires are affected by survey design and psychological diagnoses vary between countries and over time.

心理健康很難衡量。問卷調(diào)查受到問題設(shè)計的影響，而且心理診斷因國家和時間而異。

Instead, we focused on suicides and hospitalisations for self-harm among 17 countries.
相反，我們專注于研究17個國家的自殺率和自殘住院率情況。

[Paragraph 5]

Both indicators look worrying for girls. Suicide rates have been falling overall, but girls—who kill themselves less often than other groups—are an exception.

這兩項針對女孩的數(shù)據(jù)令人擔(dān)憂。自殺率總體上一直在下降，但自殺率低于其他群體的女孩數(shù)據(jù)是個例外。

Among girls aged 10-19, suicide rates rose from an average of 3.0 per 100,000 people in 2003 to 3.5 per 100,000 in 2020.

在10-19歲的女孩中，自殺率從2003年的平均每10萬人3.0人上升到2020年的每10萬人3.5人。

The rate among boys, although higher at 6.1 per 100,000 population, has barely changed.
男孩的自殺比率雖然較高，為每10萬人6.1人，但幾乎沒有變化。

[Paragraph 6]

Girls engage in more non-fatal self-harm, like cutting, than boys do. This measure shows even steeper increases.

女孩比男孩更多地進行非致命性自殘，如割傷。這項數(shù)據(jù)顯示出更陡峭的增長。

For teenage girls, rates of hospitalisation for self-harm have climbed since 2010 in all 11 countries with available data, by an average of 143%. Boys’ average rise was 49%.
自2010年以來，在所有11個有數(shù)據(jù)的國家中，少女因自殘而住院的比率都在攀升，平均上升了143%。男孩的平均增幅為49%。

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Are smartphones to blame? In America and Britain, rates of suicide and self-reported sadness were steady until roughly 2010, when Instagram launched, and then took off.

智能手機是罪魁禍?zhǔn)讍?？在美國和英國，自殺率和自報的憂郁率一直很穩(wěn)定，直到2010年前后Instagram推出，之后這些數(shù)據(jù)就飆升了。

Although these simultaneous increases do not prove that one trend caused the other, such a correlation would probably arise if phones really were at fault.
盡管這些數(shù)據(jù)同時增加并不能證明一種趨勢導(dǎo)致了另一種趨勢，但如果真是手機的原因，這種相關(guān)性可能就出現(xiàn)了。

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Elsewhere, however, the evidence is mixed. Some countries, like Sweden, saw sharp rises in hospitalisations for self-harm in 2006, with a plateau in 2010-18.

然而，其他地方的證據(jù)不一。在一些國家，如瑞典2006年因自殘而住院的人數(shù)急劇上升，在2010-2018年趨于平穩(wěn)。

In others, such as Italy, this rate was flat until covid-19 arrived. A few countries had no rises at all. Suicides varied similarly.
在其他國家，如意大利的這一數(shù)據(jù)比率在疫情之前一直持平。有幾個國家根本就沒有上升。自殺率也有類似的變化。

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Because smartphones were adopted at different rates in different countries, the timing of any increases they caused in suicides or self-harm should vary on this basis.

由于智能手機在不同國家的普及率不同，因此它們導(dǎo)致自殺或自殘增加的時間應(yīng)在此基礎(chǔ)上有所不同。

Mr Haidt says that smartphones are especially risky for girls, because boys spend more time on video games and less on depression-inducing social media.

海特說，智能手機對女孩來說特別危險，因為男孩花在視頻游戲上的時間更多，而花在導(dǎo)致抑郁癥的社交媒體上的時間更少。

However, we could not find any statistical link between changes over time in the prevalence of either mobile-internet subscriptions or self-reported social-media use in a country, and changes over time in that country’s suicide or self-harm-hospitalisation rates, for either boys or girls.

然而，我們無法找到任何統(tǒng)計上的聯(lián)系，表明在一個國家中，移動互聯(lián)網(wǎng)訂閱率或自報使用社交媒體的普及率隨時間的變化，與該國男孩或女孩的自殺或自殘住院率隨時間的變化有關(guān)聯(lián)。

After adjusting for the impact of covid, which raised these rates globally, this was true for all age groups, and for a range of time lags.
在調(diào)整了疫情的影響后（因為疫情在全球范圍內(nèi)提高了這些比率），所有年齡組和一系列時間滯后的情況都是如此。

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Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

沒找到證據(jù)并不代表沒有證據(jù)。

Numerous studies using randomised or natural experiments have implied that social media can cause sadness or anxiety in teenagers.

許多使用隨機或自然實驗的研究都表明，社交媒體會導(dǎo)致青少年的憂郁或焦慮。

And smartphones could still inflict grave damage without driving people to hurt or kill themselves.

智能手機仍然可以造成嚴(yán)重的傷害，但不會導(dǎo)致人們自殘或自殺。

But if social media were the sole or main cause of rising levels of suicide or self-harm—rather than just one part of a complex problem—country-level data would probably show signs of their effect.

但是，如果社交媒體是自殺或自殘率上升的唯一或主要原因——而不僅僅是復(fù)雜問題的一部分——那么國家層面的數(shù)據(jù)就會顯示出其影響的跡象。

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語詞匯量640左右）
原文出自：2023年5月6日《The Economist》Graphic detail版塊

精讀筆記來源于：自由英語之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene本文編輯校對: Irene
僅供個人英語學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補充資料】（來自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
水刑Waterboarding是一種審訊技術(shù)，被廣泛認(rèn)為是酷刑。它涉及向囚犯臉上蓋布，然后倒入或注入水以模擬淹沒感覺。這種技術(shù)通常會導(dǎo)致嘔吐、窒息、驚恐和心理創(chuàng)傷等身體和心理上的苦痛。由于其可能性會對受到此技術(shù)的人造成長期身體和心理上的傷害，因此多個國際組織和國家都將其視為違反人權(quán)的行為。

【重點句子】（3個）
Data support the claim that young people, particularly girls, have deteriorating mental health. But they leave room for doubt that mobiles are the main culprit.
數(shù)據(jù)證實了“年輕人（特別是女孩子）心理健康狀況惡化”的說法。但對“手機是罪魁禍?zhǔn)住钡恼f法表示懷疑。

Although these simultaneous increases do not prove that one trend caused the other, such a correlation would probably arise if phones really were at fault.
盡管這些數(shù)據(jù)同時增加并不能證明一種趨勢導(dǎo)致了另一種趨勢，但如果真是手機的原因，這種相關(guān)性可能就出現(xiàn)了。

And smartphones could still inflict grave damage without driving people to hurt or kill themselves.
智能手機仍然可以造成嚴(yán)重的傷害，但不會導(dǎo)致人們自殘或自殺。