1996 年，你发表了《玩转未来：在数字儿童身上，我们能学到些什么？》（Playing the Future: What We Can Learn From Digital Kids）这部作品，书中第一次出现了“屏幕少年”这个词，屏幕在哪些方面影响到了年轻一代？
读到这篇文章的每一个人几乎都可以说是屏幕少年。我小时候，大多数家长都有工作，或是整天忙忙碌碌的，那时候的阴极射线管电视机就像是美国家庭里的第三个家长。你回到家，坐到这个“玻璃奶嘴”前面，通过这种方式来获取营养。不过，我首创的这个词是指那些在交互环境中长大的人：对他们来说，在屏幕上打字或移动图标都是再正常不过的事。2005年左右，我走进一家摆满宽屏电视的电器商店里，看到一个三四岁的娃娃走到电视机前，试着去划动屏幕，在我看来那一刻说得上是“屏幕少年”的巅峰时刻。
现在的孩子从幼儿阶段就已对屏幕习以为常，可青少年文学却迎来了前所未有的繁荣，你如何解释这种现象呢？
这是一个积极的信号。阅读可以在大脑里开启另一个空间；对许多孩子来说，阅读是一种独特的体验，他们在阅读时就连呼吸方式都会发生变化。加拿大传播理论学家马歇尔·麦克卢汉（Marshall McLuhan）认为，互动媒体创造不出像书本那样的沉浸感。书是有温度的媒介，只提供丰富的信息，不需要读者做出回应；互动媒体则是冷媒介，它提供的信息不完整，可以由读者自行补充。
在美国，几乎没有适合年轻人的公共空间。书店就成了孩子们玩耍的地方，他们把书当作玩具。图书行业的营销手段很高明：从触摸书到绘本小说，从漫画到芭比丛书……不同品味和不同年龄的读者总能在这里找到适合自己的那本书。
© 希勒斯·拉沃尔（Gilles Larvor）/VU机构 法国巴黎郊区的贝宗图书馆。
数字技术并没有胜过实体书。书依然需要作者，在作者的权威面前读者放弃了自主权，聆听作者讲述的故事。这是一种线性的叙事形式。读一本书，读者可以徜徉在亚里士多德的故国；书中人物要做出选择，而读者对此感同身受，同样认为这些选择在所难免。阅读就是读者与书中人物的互换和对人物的认可。
“每一种媒体环境都可以为培养和积极发展创造机会，条件是要在正确的时间将媒体用在正确的地方”
我想说的是，每一种媒体环境都可以为培养和积极发展创造机会，条件是要在正确的时间将媒体用在正确的地方。这就需要去了解这些媒体中存在的偏好。书适合讲述线性故事；互动媒体有助于培养能动性，可以帮助人们拓宽思路；在一定范围内使用社交媒体，可以营造出归属感。
许多青少年是在社交媒体上或是通过电视剧了解到一本书，然后才找来读的，书还能提供哪些附加值？
看一集《权力的游戏》（Game of Thrones）只需要一小时，可要读完书中的相关内容却要花上六个小时，那人们干嘛还要去看书呢？可有意思的是，就是有人会拿起书来读。书可以被视为同人小说（业余作者在现有作品基础上进行的创作，在粉丝圈内流行）的入场券。书就像是电视剧的延伸，是深入了解剧中情节和人物的一种方式。
在我看来，同人小说为实现互动式创作带来了最初的希望。今天的一些畅销书起初就是作为同人小说发表在网络上的，J. K. 罗琳（J. K. Rowling）的《哈利·波特》（Harry Potter）启发了无数的同人小说作品。这就是互动世界。在角色扮演的奇幻世界中，从游戏衍生出的《龙与地下城》（Dungeons and Dragons）小说是这种现象的又一个实例。
你认为阅读一本纸质书和在屏幕上看电子书有区别吗？
确实有区别，我认为孩子们也意识到了其中的不同。书籍是三维空间的一部分，孩子们去书店，走到店里的某个角落，去看一看、摸一摸他们记忆中的那些书，这与划动屏幕和接受算法提供的内容是截然不同的两种体验。
“读纸质书和划动屏幕是截然不同的两种体验”
这就像是听一张黑胶唱片和使用音乐流媒体服务之间的区别。听完了唱片的A面，需要把唱片翻过来，才能听到B面的开头部分。书会让人产生同样的空间感。人们记忆事物的方式是不同的。
许多人在听有声书，我认为与在屏幕上看电子书相比，有声书为数字技术找到了更好的用途。有声书还可以营造出更多的沉浸体验，闭上眼睛，仿佛身临其境。
优秀的用户界面和用户体验设计人员越来越擅长为在线体验营造出空间感。据说，元宇宙在这方面就做得很好：在这个虚拟宇宙里，人们可以尽情创造世界，可以建设一个地方或是一处社区，而不仅仅是挖一条看不到尽头的隧道。
© UNESCO Courier
家长是否应该担心屏幕对孩子产生的影响？
家长应该时刻关注着孩子使用的任何东西。在白天的八个小时里，家长把自己的孩子托付给社交媒体公司，他们当然应该担心。当年轻人感到沮丧和焦虑时，大型科技公司的运营方式却在持续助长这些不良情绪和状况，真是令人不安。
我们把一只动物带回家之前总是会考虑周全，在把新的媒介带入孩子的生活之前，也同样需要深思熟虑。把一种新的工具交到孩子手上，我们必须知道自己这种做法是在鼓励什么，该如何与年轻人合作使用这种工具。问题不在于屏幕本身，而在于屏幕的实际控制者和平台的偏好会给孩子暗示些什么。
Douglas Rushkoff: “Reading is still a unique experience for kids”
The experience of reading a story is very different if we’re immersed in a book or scrolling through text on a screen, says Douglas Rushkoff, American media theorist and father of concepts like "viral media" and "screenager".
Interview by Anuliina Savolainen
UNESCO
You coined the term “screenager” in your book Playing the Future: What We Can Learn From Digital Kids in 1996. In what ways have screens shaped new generations?
Almost everyone reading this is a certain kind of screenager. When I was a child the cathode-ray tube television was like a third parent in America, because most of our parents were working or busy. You'd come home and sit in front of this ‘glass teat’ and get your nourishment that way. But when I coined the term, I meant people who were raised native to the interactive environment: people for whom typing or moving things on the screen was normal. For me the height of the "screenager" was when I went into an appliance store in the mid-2000s with all those wide-screen TVs and saw a three-to-four-year-old walk up to the screen and try to swipe it.
Although screens are part of children's lives from a very early age today, youth literature is enjoying an unprecedented boom. How do you explain this?
This is a positive sign. Reading books creates an alternative brain space; it's a different experience for many kids, they even breathe differently when they read. According to the Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan, interactive media doesn't create the same kind of immersion as a book. The book is a warm medium, providing rich information and not requiring a response; whereas interactive media is a cool medium in the sense that the message is not complete and can be completed by the reader.
In America, we have almost no public spaces for young people. Bookstores have become places where children can play and be grounded with books as toys. Book industry people are clever at marketing: from touch-and-feel books to illustrated novels; from mangas to Barbie books... there's something for every taste and age.
Digital technology hasn’t transcended the book. A book still has an author, and you want to surrender your autonomy to their authority, so they can tell you a story. This narrative shape requires linearity. With a written book, you're still in Aristotle's land, where you have a character making choices and the reader vicariously experiences them as inevitable. It's all about reversal and recognition.
"Each media environment offers opportunities for nourishment and positive development if you use them in the right place at the right time"
I would argue that each media environment offers opportunities for nourishment and positive development if you use them in the right place at the right time. That requires understanding the biases of each medium. Books are great for linear storytelling. Interactive media is great for helping people develop agency and to consider new pathways. Social media is great, used in limited context, for creating communities.
Many teenagers also come to books after discovering them first on social media or through a series. What is the added value a book can still offer?
It takes six hours to read a one-hour episode of the Game of Thrones series in a book. So why do they still grab the book? It's interesting they do – here the book can be seen as an entrance to fan fiction (amateur writing within circles of fans based on an existing work). The book operates like an extension to the series, a way to get other insights into the story and the characters.
Fan fiction holds for me some of the original promise of interactive creativity. Some of today’s bestsellers first started online as fan fiction and J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels have inspired countless fan fiction works. These are interactive universes. In the world of fantasy role-playing, the Dungeons and Dragons books linked to the game are another example of this phenomenon.
Do you see a difference between reading a physical book and reading it on screen?
I do, and I think children are realizing that too. Books are part of our 3D-orientation. Kids going to the bookstore, walking to a particular corner of the store to see and touch the books they remember, is a very different experience from just scrolling and being fed through the algorithm.
"Reading a physical book is a very different experience from just scrolling"
You can compare it to having a vinyl record versus using a music streaming service. When you're at the end of the first side of the album you will turn it over to go to the beginning of the second. In the same way you're spatially oriented with a book. You memorize things differently.
Many people are also listening to books, which to me seems like a more appropriate use of digital technology than reading them on screen. An audio book also can create more immersion: you close your eyes and feel like you could be there.
Good user interface and user experience designers are getting better at creating a sense of space in online experiences. The metaverse would supposedly be good for that: a place where people are doing world creation, and rather than just creating an infinite tunnel, they would create a place, a neighbourhood.
Should parents be concerned about the influence of screens on their children?
Parents should always be concerned about the use of anything. They should be concerned when they surrender eight hours of their children's conscious time to social media companies. When we see that youth are depressed and anxious and yet the big tech companies continue operating their companies in ways that promote those feelings and conditions, that’s worrying.
I think we should think about every new medium you bring into their lives the same way you would think about bringing a new animal home. It's a matter of understanding what you are encouraging when you give a new tool to the child, and how you partner with the young person in using this medium. It's not the screens themselves, but it's whoever is in control and whatever is suggested to children by the biases of the platform.
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