科技真的在帮助父母吗？

你就是那个朋友吧？你知道的，就是那个总爱向愿意听的人推荐播客节目的那位？订阅NPR的播客俱乐部通讯，和我们一起狂热追播。每周你都能收到由那些以此为生的人精心挑选的新鲜播客推荐。订阅请访问npr.org/podclub。

Are you that friend? You know, the one that's constantly recommending podcast episodes to anyone who will listen? Subscribe to NPR's pod club newsletter and nerd out with us. You'll get fresh podcast recommendations every week, handpicked by the people that live for this stuff. Subscribe at npr.org/podclub.

你也可以在本集节目描述中找到链接。我是阿耶莎·罗斯科，这里是《周日故事》，我们将深入探讨一个大话题。我的孩子们长得太快了，而科技的发展似乎比他们成长的速度还要快。作为父母，这真的让人应接不暇，尤其是当他们还是婴儿，那么小，看起来如此脆弱的时候。公司真的会利用父母的恐惧和焦虑，让他们购买远远超出必要范围的科技小玩意。

You can also find the link in the description for this episode. I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story where we go deep on one big story. My kids are growing up so fast, and it seems like just as fast as they're growing up, technology is zooming ahead even faster. As a parent, it can be really overwhelming, especially when they're babies and they're really little and just seem so fragile. And companies can really play on parents' fears and anxieties to get them to buy gadgets and tech far beyond what's necessary.

这正是作家阿曼达·赫斯在她的新书《第二人生：数字时代的育儿》中探讨的观点之一。今天的《周日故事》中，媒体制作人莫莉·罗森将与阿曼达·赫斯聊聊育儿与科技新时代的故事。请继续收听。

And that's one of the ideas explored in the new book by author Amanda Hess, Second Life, Having a Child in the Digital Age. Today on the Sunday story, on the media producer, Molly Rosen talks with Amanda Hess about parenting and the new age of tech. Stay with us.

本信息由BetterHelp提供。如今关于心理健康和福祉的讨论很多，似乎对每件事都有建议。但你如何知道哪些真正适合你呢？BetterHelp的治疗师在170万条客户评价中获得了4.9分的高分。因此，他们的持证治疗师能帮你找到最适合的方案，让你放心接受专业帮助。

This message comes from BetterHelp. With all the talk about mental health and wellness these days, it can feel like there's advice for everything. But how do you know what actually works for you? BetterHelp therapists have a 4.9 rating from 1,700,000 client reviews. So you're in good hands with their licensed therapists who can help figure out what's best for you.

访问betterhelp.com/NPR，首月可享九折优惠。

Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR for 10% off your first month.

本节目及以下内容由Prolon赞助。想在今夏展现最佳状态吗？不要只关注表面，要关注细胞层面。Prolon五天营养计划的目标是通过按日标记的餐盒（让你清楚知道每天该吃什么），在细胞层面为你带来新生。

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Prolon. Wanna look and feel your best this summer? Don't just think skin deep. Think cell deep. The goal of Prolon's five day nutrition program is to rejuvenate you at the cellular level with boxes labeled by day so you know exactly what to eat.

根据临床研究，Prolon旨在让你在进食时触发禁食状态。Prolon是营养学的未来。订阅prolonlife.com/npr可享85折优惠。

Based on their clinical study, Prolon aims to trigger a fasting state while you eat. Prolon is the future of nutrition. Get 15% off when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/npr.

NPR及以下内容由德州互助保险公司赞助。作为该州领先的工伤保险提供商，德州互助致力于通过支持当地社区、投资州经济、奖励注重安全的投保人，建设更具韧性的德州。他们正努力使德州变得更强大、更安全。了解更多关于他们作为稳定向善力量的承诺，请访问texasmutual.com/texans。德州互助，德州人懂。

Support for NPR and the following message come from Texas Mutual Insurance Company. As the leading provider of workers' compensation insurance in the state, Texas Mutual is committed to a more resilient Texas by supporting local communities, investing in the state economy, and rewarding policyholders for prioritizing safety, they are working to make Texas a stronger, safer place. More on their commitment to being a stable force for good at texasmutual.com/texans get it. Texas Mutual. Texans get it.

欢迎回到《周日故事》。媒体制作人莫莉·罗森将与作家阿曼达·赫斯探讨数字时代的育儿话题。以下是莫莉的报道。

We're back with a Sunday story. On the media producer Molly Rosen is talking to author Amanda Hess about having kids in the digital age. Here's Molly.

之所以由我来进行这次采访而非我们的主持人，是因为我九个月前刚生了一个宝宝。

So there's a reason that I am doing this interview and not one of our hosts, and that's because I just had a baby nine months ago.

天啊。

Oh my gosh.

我最近要么刚刚经历过，要么正在经历你书中描述的一些事情。我真的觉得你的书帮我处理了一些我甚至没意识到会浮现的问题。你多年来一直撰写关于互联网和流行文化的文章，而这本书很大程度上是关于各种技术如何中介了你怀孕、分娩和育儿的体验。你是什么时候决定要写这本书的？

I either recently experienced or am in the midst of some of the things that you write about in your book. And I really felt like your book helped me process some questions that I did not even know would arise for me. You have written for many years about the internet and pop culture, and this book is a lot about how various technologies mediated the experience of your pregnancy and birth and parenting. When did you decide that there was a book here?

你知道，我写互联网相关话题已经很久了，我与它保持着一种批判性距离的关系。对我来说，调查网络上发生的事情然后可能短暂加入某个社区，之后全身而退是家常便饭。但当我怀孕的那一刻，我立即意识到这次情况不同了。那种批判性距离完全消失了。不过出于习惯，我还是从一开始就截图记录网上看到的孕期相关内容。

You know, I have been writing about the Internet for such a long time, and I have this relationship with it where I have a critical distance to the things that I'm investigating. And it's very routine for me to look into something that's happening on the Internet and maybe, like, join into a community for a little bit and then leave and leave it behind emotionally too. And it was immediately when I got pregnant that I realized that that was not going to happen this time. And I just had a a very different relationship where the critical distance was, like, completely gone. But I did just because I'm so used to it, I started taking screenshots and notes of things that I was seeing related to pregnancy online from the very beginning.

后来怀孕七个月时，一次异常超声波检查让我意识到这次妊娠并不顺利。当时我有种强烈的迷信感——觉得正是因为我记录孕期体验、调侃孕妇装广告有多可笑这些行为，在某种程度上诅咒了这次怀孕。这种迷信感强烈到反常，毕竟我本不是迷信的人。那时我就明确不会写这个经历了。直到儿子出生后，我才意识到这种迷信心理和驱动我网络互动的非理性部分其实非常有趣，值得探究其成因。

And then when I was seven months pregnant and I had an abnormal ultrasound and I realized that my pregnancy was less than normal, I had this feeling, this intense superstitious feeling that by taking notes on my experience and, like, writing little jokes to myself about how funny maternity wear advertising is, that I had doomed my pregnancy in some way. This very powerfully superstitious feeling, and I'm not a superstitious person. And so then it was clear to me that I was not gonna be writing about this experience. And then it was only later after my son was born that I realized that this feeling of superstition and this just subrational part of me that was driving so much of my interaction with the Internet was actually really interesting to me, and I should try to find out more about why I felt that way.

这很有意思，听起来你最初是戴着评论家的帽子看待某些滑稽或不寻常的现象，后来事态变得非常真实。嗯。但这反而让这个主题更值得深入探讨和书写。

Yeah. That's so interesting because I feel like I hear you saying that you almost had your critic hat on at first, where some things were maybe funny or unusual, and then it got very real. Mhmm. But that almost made it more worth exploring and writing about.

是的。而且我也意识到自己在网上做过不少无益的事，比如浪费时间研究十五年前的空难，或者更严重的——为了减肥沉迷某个显示体重波动曲线的应用，看着自己起伏的数据线试图逼近那条笔直的目标体重线。

Yeah. And I also felt like I've done a bunch of stuff on the Internet that maybe is less than productive for myself. Just wasting time trying to solve, like, a plane crash from fifteen years ago. Sure. Or, like, more seriously, trying to lose some weight and getting, like, a little bit obsessed with an app that shows the jagged line of my body trying to approach this straight line of my goal weight or whatever.

过去总觉得这些行为最多伤害自己。但怀孕后突然意识到：我现在是用这些工具把新生命带到世界上。这迫使我必须认清自己是如何内化这些应用传递的信息的。

And I always felt like the only person I was really hurting was myself. But immediately when I got pregnant, was like, I'm now using these tools to bring another person into the world. And I think that also forced a reckoning for me in trying to understand better how I was internalizing some of the messages from those apps.

我想问问你孕前和孕期使用的经期追踪应用Flow。这款热门应用在你怀孕后切换到了孕期模式。你和它的关系在孕期发生了怎样的演变？

I do wanna ask about one of the apps that you used pre pregnancy and then during pregnancy, which is a period tracker app called Flow. It's very popular. And when you became pregnant, it switched into pregnancy mode. How did your relationship with the app evolve over the course of your pregnancy?

最初下载Flow记录经期时，它标榜自己是帮助女性通过了解身体获得力量的工具。界面设计非常女性化，像少女日记本。当时觉得确实实用，但没想到它会转换出孕期模式。

When I first downloaded Flow to track my period, it was, you know, it sort of presented itself to me as this, like, girl power app that's for learning about yourself and empowering yourself through knowledge of your body. And it's very feminized in its presentation. It sort of looks like a preteen diary. And I found it very helpful, actually. But I didn't think at the time that I downloaded it that it would also transform through pregnancy mode.

孕期模式明显将怀孕游戏化了。切换后整个使用体验截然不同——从赋能日记变成了规训程序，每天每周告诉你该做什么，还通过CGI图像展示进度：先是漂浮的细胞，然后变成胚囊、胚胎、虾米般的小生物，最后是代表胎儿的桃色玩偶。最难以解释的是，当我看着那个粗糙的胎儿图像时，竟觉得那就是我体内的真实景象。当然那只是为全球数百万用户生成的统一动画。

It makes it so clear that it's gamifying a pregnancy. And immediately when I activated pregnancy mode, I just had a completely different experience with it, and the interface was so different. You know, it had turned from this kind of empowering diary into a disciplinary program, Something that would tell me what I should be doing every day or every week, and then show this visualization of my progress through, like, a CGI image of, like, a stock pregnant person whose belly is expanding and a CGI image of, like, this cell floating in nothing and then a blastocyst and an embryo and a little shrimp like being and then, like, a little peach baby doll that represented my child. And I think the thing that I never could have explained to myself before, and it's difficult for me to even understand now that I'm not pregnant anymore, is that when I looked at that janky image of a fetus, I felt like I was looking inside my body. It felt like it was really a true representation of my pregnancy when, of course, it's just this cartoon that's generated for tens of millions of people who activate pregnancy mode through the app.

2021年曾有人向联邦贸易委员会投诉Flow公司处理敏感个人信息的问题。显然，这是一款经期追踪应用，涉及非常私密的信息。在您报道后，我很好奇您对这些应用的使用及其潜在隐私影响有何看法？

There was a Federal Trade Commission complaint filed against Flow in 2021 regarding its handling of sensitive personal information. Obviously, a period tracker app. It's very personal information. I'm curious after your reporting, what are your thoughts on the use of these apps and the potential privacy implications?

人们普遍担忧经期应用或孕期应用的数据会被直接用于将堕胎、流产、死产等行为定罪的案件中。当我与为孕妇刑事案辩护的律师交谈时，他们表示尚未见过此类案例。但通过使用这类应用，我明显感觉到——即便我们不清楚数据具体如何被使用——这种消费者监控应用正在让我们习惯一个观念：应该存在某个外部权威机构来追踪监控怀孕甚至月经周期，认为这是有益且必要的事，我们的身体必须通过这种方式被数据化控制才能获得最佳妊娠或分娩体验。因此我更关注这种技术广泛使用可能催生的文化习惯。

There is a lot of concern that data from a period app or a pregnancy app will be used explicitly in, a case to criminalize an abortion or a miscarriage or a stillbirth or something like that. When I spoke with lawyers who defend women in pregnancy criminalization cases, they told me that they had not seen a case where that had happened yet. I think what is obvious to me just from using the app, even if we don't know exactly how this data is being used, is that, you know, a consumer surveillance app functions to get us used to this idea that there ought to be an outside authority that is tracking and monitoring a pregnancy or even, you know, a menstrual cycle, and that this is a good and necessary thing and that our bodies must be controlled and datafied in this way in order to have an optimal pregnancy or an optimal birth. And so I'm much more interested in the cultural habits that might emerge from the widespread use of that technology.

确实。您在书中写到Instagram的广告变得如此个性化以至于开始让人感到私密。通过报道，您发现有多少追踪者对您的孕期数据感兴趣？这些信息的价值几何？

Yes. You write that advertising on Instagram became so personalized that it started to feel intimate. What did you find through your reporting about how many trackers were interested in the data about your pregnancy and about how much that information was worth?

在我验孕呈阳性后，立即在谷歌搜索'怀孕后该做什么'，弹出了WebMD的链接。当时我不知道WebMD与在线广告生态系统的深度绑定。后来我回溯发现，仅这次搜索访问WebMD页面的行为，就允许74家广告追踪公司跟踪我，在浏览器存储153个cookie，并将信息发送给Facebook。约24小时后，当我刷Instagram时，广告全变成了孕期维生素和孕妇装的推荐。

So immediately after I got a positive pregnancy test, I searched what to do when you get pregnant on Google. And a WebMD link popped up. What I was not aware of was, like, how embedded in the online advertising ecosystem WebMD is. So I then later went back and retraced my steps and found that when I searched for that again and went back to that WebMD page, that action had allowed 74 ad tracking companies to track me and stored 153 cookies in my browser and also sent that information to Facebook. So about twenty four hours after I made that search when I was just, like, staring at Instagram, I started seeing my ads turn into prenatal vitamin ads, maternity dress ads.

科技公司被指控使用经期或孕期敏感数据时，常辩称'后台并未追踪谁怀孕谁没怀孕'。但实际上无需专门追踪，因为系统足够复杂自动化——只要搜索过我这类关键词，算法自然知道你比其他人更可能对孕期维生素广告感兴趣，尤其是当你的浏览路径最终停留在WebMD的'我刚怀孕'页面时。

And so a lot of the times when a tech company is accused of using sensitive data that has to do with menstruation or pregnancy, they'll say something like, there's no part of our back end that's tracking who is and who isn't pregnant, but there really doesn't have to be because the systems are complex enough and automated enough that it just knows that if you search what I searched, you may be more interested in prenatal vitamin ads than someone who has not searched for that and ended up on the I just got pregnant page on WebMD.

您在书中以极具张力的场景开篇：躺在诊室检查椅上，常规超声检查异常漫长，技师反复拍摄图像，显然发现了需要深究的问题。这开启了您所谓的'诊断奥德赛'之旅，辗转于各科专家之间。能否详细描述这段经历？

You open your book with a pretty intense scene. You're lying on an exam chair in the doctor's office, and your routine ultrasound is going suspiciously long. The technician keeps taking images, and you can tell that they've seen something that they want to look into. This starts you on what you call a diagnostic odyssey, trips from one medical specialist to another. Could you walk me through how this experience unfolded for you?

是的。躺在检查台上时，每次孕检都有的担忧声音又浮现：'万一有问题怎么办？他们会说什么？'但之前每次结果都完全正常。

Yeah. I mean, I was lying there on the table. And every time this had happened previously in my pregnancy, there was a little voice of worry that was like, what if something's wrong? What are they gonna say? And every time, it was completely normal.

这次不同了。长久恐惧的事似乎正在成真。最难忘的是2020年疫情规定禁止家属陪同检查，丈夫不在场。但我的第一反应不是'希望丈夫在场'——

And this time, it wasn't. And so it felt like this thing that I had long feared was coming true. And the thing that I remember the most about being on that table, my husband wasn't there because this was 2020, and so guests were, like, not allowed in an ultrasound room. Yeah. And my first thought wasn't, I wish my husband was here.

而是'真希望带着手机，能立刻搜索技师正在检查的屏幕异常'。后来拿到手机后，我就再没松过手。

My first thought was, I wish I had my phone with me here so I could start googling these things that I'm seeing the technician investigate on the screen. And then once I did seize my phone, I seldom let it go.

您写道：'如果有手机，我就能在检查台边谷歌求解，将恐惧倾注进这个入口，把它们加工成答案'。

You wrote that if I had the phone, I could hold it close to the exam table and Google my way out. I could pour my fears into its portal and process them into answers.

是的。最终医生进来时告诉我，我儿子在做超声检查时一直吐舌头，这很不寻常，他怀疑可能是一种罕见的遗传病，叫做贝克威德曼综合征——现在我对这个病非常熟悉，因为他诊断对了，我儿子确实患有此症。但当时我只听到一个无法辨认的德国名字综合征，这可怕极了。整整一个月后才确诊。期间出现了许多理论，有些甚至预测情况会非常糟糕。

Yeah. Eventually, when the doctor came in, he told me that my son was sticking out his tongue on the ultrasound persistently, which is unusual, and that he suspected that it might be a rare genetic condition called Beckwith Wiedemann syndrome, which now I'm very familiar with because he was right, and my son does have that. But at the time, all I heard was unrecognizable German name syndrome, and it was incredibly scary. It took a full month to confirm that that's what it was. And in between, there were many theories, some of them catastrophic about what was actually going on.

后来，这段经历真正让我意识到：我最初接触的孕期网络社区，其塑造的孕妇形象是如此单一——白人、健全、经济宽裕到可以购买婴儿房 gadgets 的女性。我们过度关注这类群体。而像 Flo 应用提供的标准胎儿图像，直到做完那次超声检查我才明白，Flo 的模板图像当然不会像我儿子在超声里的模样。

Later, what I really came away with from that experience was, you know, I'd started in the pregnancy Internet so centered in its image of what a pregnant person in a pregnancy is supposed to look like. White, able-bodied woman who has enough money that maybe she'll buy a gadget to put in her nursery. So we're gonna pay a lot of attention to her. And then, you know, this image from Flo that was just like stock fetus. And it was only after I had that ultrasound that I realized, of course, Flo's stock image did not look like my son looked on an ultrasound.

而我后来进入的另一个孕期网络空间，是承认残疾存在的——主流孕期社区却完全忽视这点。我感觉自己被那个花了七个月试图让我产生归属感的'正常孕期网络'放逐了。起初这很痛苦，但现在我认为这是个礼物，它让我看清了那些从一开始就不适用于我、坦白说也不适用于任何人的固有假设。

And this other pregnancy Internet zone that I had entered was one that acknowledged disability, which the generic pregnancy Internet really did not. I felt like I had been cast out of the normal pregnancy Internet that had spent seven months trying to get me to feel like it was my community. And at first, that felt awful. And later, I now think of it as such a gift to have this opportunity to see all of the assumptions that I had been making all along that didn't apply to me and frankly, like, do not apply to anyone.

您正在收听《周日故事》。请继续关注。

You're listening to the Sunday story. Stay with us.

本节目由 Prolon 赞助播出。想在今夏展现最佳状态？别只关注表皮，要关注细胞层面。Prolon 五日营养计划通过按日分装的餐盒，指导您精准饮食，旨在从细胞层面实现 rejuvenation。

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Prolon. Wanna look and feel your best this summer? Don't just think skin deep. Think cell deep. The goal of Prolon's five day nutrition program is to rejuvenate you at the cellular level with boxes labeled by day so you know exactly what to eat.

根据临床研究，Prolon 能在进食状态下触发 fasting 效应。Prolon 代表营养学的未来。订阅 prolonlife.com/npr 可享 85 折优惠。本消息来自 NPR 赞助商 Odoo 企业管理软件。有人说 Odoo 像肥料，因为它促进增长。

Based on their clinical study, Prolon aims to trigger a fasting state while you eat. Prolon is the future of nutrition. Get 15% off when you subscribe at prolonlife.com/npr. This message comes from NPR's sponsor, Odoo Business Management Software. Some say Odoo is like fertilizer because it promotes growth.

还有人称之为高效攀升的魔法豆茎。Odoo，企业所需，恰如其分。立即注册 0d00.com。

Others say it's a magic beanstalk scaling with efficiency. Odoo, exactly what a business needs. Sign up today at 0d00.com.

本消息来自 Fisher Investments。高级副总裁 Michael Hosmar 分享他们履行受托责任时践行的一个准则：

This message comes from Fisher Investments. Senior vice president Michael Hosmar shares one way their fiduciary duty comes to life when working with clients.

我们倾听客户的目标、诉求与个人需求，制定以他们需求为先的规划。客户希望了解我们的真实思考，以及这些思考如何融入为他们定制的方案——这正是我们对待受托责任的态度。

We listen to our clients' goals, their objectives, their personal needs, and we build a plan that puts their needs first. They wanna know what we're truly thinking about and how that thinking is being built into our plan for them because that's how seriously we take our fiduciary responsibility.

详情请访问 fisherinvestments.com。证券投资可能带来本金损失。

Learn more at fisherinvestments.com. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss.

那么我想接着谈谈初为人父母的阶段。你和第一个儿子经历的事情在我看来异常艰难——每次他睡觉时你们都得给他戴上氧气管。作为一个深知新生儿睡眠难题的人，这听起来就很不容易。你还尝试了市场上一些优化睡眠的婴儿产品，我很好奇你从中得到了什么启示。

So I wanna move on to early parenthood. You go through something with your first son that to me just sounded incredibly difficult, which is that you had to strap on oxygen tubes every time he was sleeping. And as someone who is very familiar with the difficulty of newborn sleep, that just sounds hard. And you embarked on a journey where you tried out some of the baby products on the market to optimize sleep. I'm curious what your takeaways were from that.

是的。在我儿子出生前，我和丈夫了解到Snoo智能摇篮，这种电动摇篮能模拟子宫环境来回摇摆并发出嗖嗖声。商家宣称使用Snoo的婴儿平均比不用Snoo的多睡1-2小时。带过孩子的人都知道，多1-2小时睡眠简直像多活了一辈子。

Yeah. So before my son was born, my husband and I learned about snoo, which is this robotic bassinet that, like, sways back and forth and emits a whooshing sound that mimics the womb. And the snoo promises that snoo babies, it says, on average, sleep one to two hours more than babies who do not go to sleep in the snoo. And if you've ever had a baby, one to two hours. One to two hours is like a lifetime.

确实。

Yeah.

声称能延长婴儿睡眠这么长时间太诱人了。所以我决定要用这个产品，想兑现他们承诺的额外睡眠时间。我没从官网购买而是买的二手货，因此无法获得官方技术支持，只能上网加入新手父母社群求助：'这东西到底怎么用才能让我孩子多睡会儿？'因为他当时睡眠质量很差。

That's such a long period of time to suggest that you can add to your baby sleep. And so I was like, I am using this thing and, like, I'm gonna try to get my one to two hours out of it that I had been promised or whatever. I didn't buy it from the company. I bought it secondhand, so I didn't have any of its, like, troubleshooting access. And so it meant that I was also then going online to new online communities of parents being like, how do I get this thing to work?

这段经历让我深刻意识到，这个号称能改善婴儿睡眠并提供详细数据报告的设备——记录何时醒来、何时烦躁、累计睡眠时长等——反而阻碍了我真正理解孩子的睡眠需求。之后我开始研究其他智能育儿产品：婴儿监护摄像头、Owlet智能袜（能监测脉搏血氧的准医疗设备）。但正因我使用过真正的医疗设备，现在我只想把这些都清出家门。儿子七个月大时终于能停用这些设备，我简直欣喜若狂。

Like, says to, like, actually make my child sleep more because he was not a great or easy sleeper. And the thing that I really took away from that experience was this device, which not only promised to, like, improve my baby's sleep, but also promised to improve my understanding of my baby's sleep in that it also, like, spat out this data and insights into when he had woken up, when he was fussing, when he was going back to sleep, the cumulative hours he had slept had actually gotten in the way of me really understanding him and what he needed for sleep. And so after I used that, I became curious about all of these other products that are on the market, smart baby cameras, the Owlet, which is a quasi medical sock that you put around your child's ankle that gives you insight into your child's pulse and oxygen saturation and stuff like that. And I really came to understand because I was using a real medical device, I wanted only to get rid of this device. Like, I only I only wanted to banish it from my home, and I was so excited when he was seven months and we could get rid of it.

他已经用不着了。如今科技公司把医疗级监控作为奢侈品推销给家长，营造能完全掌控婴儿健康与睡眠的幻象，这种现象很有趣。这些产品多聚焦睡眠也很合理——因为只有当新生儿睡着时，家长才仿佛能暂时'掌控'他们。

He had, like, grown out of it. And the idea that this is now, like, a precious commodity that tech companies are selling to people to, like, bring the medical environment into their home, I think, is so interesting and speaks to just this tantalizing idea that we can completely control and optimize everything about our baby's health and their sleep. And it makes sense to me that so many of these things are focused on sleep because it's only when your newborn is, like, knocked out that it seems like you have any control over them, really.

没错。你书中给我的重要启示是：表面在讲科技，实则揭示个体如何周旋于医疗体系、经济系统和科技平台之间。我好奇这段写书经历让你对'人生可控性'的认知产生了什么变化？

Yes. That's actually a big takeaway of mine from your book was that it's about technology. But I also saw it as really about you as an individual working with all these different systems, medical system, the economy, these technology platforms. And I'm curious how your experience in writing this book left you thinking about the control that we like to pretend that we have over our lives.

孕期经历的重大失控反而帮助我在产后放松了些。我看到很多新手父母朋友仍深陷'确保一切绝对正常'的焦虑中，而我已经历过异常状况，这种经历莫名给了我'总会好起来'的信心。但随着孩子长大，你会更清楚意识到：所谓控制从来都是假象。

Yeah. I mean, I think because I experienced this, like, profound loss and control during my pregnancy, it actually helped me when my son was actually born to let go of that a little bit. I saw a lot of peers and friends who I think were, like, really in the thick of that in the newborn stage, just trying to make sure that nothing bad happened, that nothing south of normal was happening or whatever. And I was like, I already know that something abnormal has happened and that for whatever reason has given me the confidence that, like, it's gonna be okay. But I also think the older your kids get, the less control you have over them and the easier it is to see that you never really had that control.

他们逐渐显露出与生俱来的个性，你才明白从最初怀抱他们时就已注定。科技公司贩卖的'完全掌控'幻想，只存在于孕期和新生儿阶段——让你误以为每个决定都会深刻影响孩子未来。不知是写书还是孩子成长让我顿悟：这种虚幻的控制欲正是我们苦苦追寻却永远无法真正获得的东西。

They become their own person and you realize that it was the same personality that they've had from the moment you first held them. And it's only really in pregnancy and then this newborn stage when I think technology companies can provide this fantasy that you do have total control and that every decision that you make will have some profound effect over their future. So I don't know if it was writing the book or just having my kids grow up and grow away from me a little bit that let me understand that that was the thing that I had really been looking for and that is so elusive and can't actually be delivered to a parent.

你提到个有趣观点：科技公司让我们习惯依赖外部权威来解读最私密的生活信息。我发现自己也会为育儿科技妥协——比如我和丈夫用AI预测宝宝就寝时间的睡眠追踪APP，有时自嘲说'没有这app我们可能连孩子该几点睡觉都不知道'，想想挺尴尬的。

You said something really interesting, which I think has come up a couple times, which is that you see this as technology companies kind of getting us used to the need to have this kind of outside authority telling us this information about our very personal lives. And I have noticed actually becoming apparent that I'm willing to compromise on some things with technology that I don't think I would have otherwise. I think because it feels so important. So for example, my husband and I use this app tracking our baby's sleep that uses AI to have these predictive windows about when he should go to bed. And we sometimes joke that, like, I don't know if we would know when he's supposed to sleep, embarrassingly.

就像，没有这个应用程序我们可能就无从知晓。

Like, think we wouldn't know without the app.

我是说，在怀孕期间，我真的被训练成认为自己是一个需要被监控的人，我的怀孕需要被监控才能正确进行。我逐渐适应了这种状态。然后孩子出生后，就变成了：好吧，现在你是监控者了。你坐在了监控的位置上。

I mean, I really felt like during pregnancy, I was trained to see myself as somebody who needed to be surveilled, that my pregnancy needed to be surveilled in order for me to do it correctly. I became comfortable with that. And then once my child was born, it was like, okay. You're the surveillor now. You're in the surveilling seat.

比如，你手机上有监控宝宝的应用程序。我试用了一款叫Nanit的AI婴儿监视器放在孩子房间。我使用它是想了解这些新兴技术是什么样子。它通过机器学习监测孩子的动作，录制视频并在早上生成一个小视频集锦。这样我就能看到孩子们睡觉时打滚、起床或说梦话的画面——这些由监控片段拼接成的小电影。

Like, you have the app on your phone that monitors your baby. I tried out this camera in my kid's room called the Nanit, which is an AI enabled baby monitor. And I used it because I wanted to see what these emerging technologies were like. It does this thing where through machine learning, it monitors when your child is moving in some way, and it captures video and puts it in a little feed for you in the morning. So I could see when my kids were wrestling in their sleep or when they got up or when they said something, just this little movie made of surveillance footage of my kids.

当然，我觉得我的孩子是世界上最可爱的人。所以一开始我觉得这些视频好有趣。直到有天晚上我陪儿子入睡时，才从他视角看到摄像头——只是四个发着红光的眼睛。这让我开始思考孩子们如何体验这些科技，以及监控如何被等同于关爱。

And obviously, like, I think my kids are the most beautiful people in the world. And so I was like, oh, they're so cute. And then it was it wasn't until one night I laid down with my son to help him try to go to sleep that I was able to see what he sees from this camera, and it was just four glowing red eyes. And it made me really question how our kids are experiencing these things and how surveillance is becoming equated to care.

我觉得这些应用程序承诺的是——就像你说的——只要掌握正确数据，拥有足够信息，我们就能解决所有问题。

I think some of these apps promise, like you say, that if we just had the right data, if we have enough information, we can solve all of our own problems.

我们获得的是大量信息、洞察、数据和建议，但真正需要的是支持体系。这些科技只是鼓励我们更关注自己孩子，而我们需要的是建立照顾他人孩子、也让别人照顾我们孩子的社会机制——不是作为有偿照料经济，而是融入社会的自然部分。

I think what we get is a lot of information and insights and data and advice when what we actually need is support. I think a lot of these technologies just encourage us to pay more attention to our own kids when we need to be figuring out how we can have a vision of taking care of other people's kids and allowing other people to take care of our kids. Not in a way that is part of the care economy, but that is just built into our society.

阿曼达，非常感谢你。

Amanda, thank you very much.

非常感谢，这次对话非常愉快。

Thank you so much. This was really fun.

阿曼达·赫斯是新书《数字时代的重生：育儿记》的作者。

Amanda Hess is the author of the new book, Second Life, Having a Child in the Digital Age.

本期《周日故事》由安德鲁·曼博制作，詹妮·施密特编辑。原《论媒体》节目由莫莉·罗森制作，卡蒂娅·罗杰斯编辑，贾里德·保罗负责技术。周日故事团队还包括贾斯汀·严和莉安娜·西姆斯特罗姆。执行制作人是艾琳·野口。我是阿伊莎·罗斯科。

This episode of the Sunday story was produced by Andrew Mambo and edited by Jenny Schmidt. The original on the media episode was produced by Molly Rosen, edited by Katia Rogers, and engineered by Jared Paul. The Sunday story team also includes Justine Yan and Liana Simstrom. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. I'm Ayesha Roscoe.

首先，我们明天将为您带来开启新一周所需的全部新闻资讯。在此之前，祝您周末愉快。

Up first, we'll be back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend.

本播客及以下内容由Fisher Investments赞助支持，他们深刻理解客户与财务顾问关系的重要性。作为受托人，Fisher Investments始终以客户最佳利益为先。他们不销售任何佣金制产品，而是采用透明的按资产比例收费模式——客户收益增长，他们方能获益。这才是真正差异化的财富管理之道。

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Fisher Investments who understands the importance of the relationship between a client and their financial adviser. As a fiduciary, Fisher Investments always acts in their client's best interests. They don't sell any commission based products. Instead, Fisher has a transparent fee structure that's a percentage of your portfolio, so they do better when you do better. Now that's clearly different money management.

详情请访问fisherinvestments.com。证券投资可能带来本金损失风险。

Learn more at fisherinvestments.com. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss.

本内容由NPR赞助商Oracle呈现。商界常说'优质、廉价、高效'三者只能取其二。但若您能同时兼得呢？Oracle云基础设施(OCI)正是满足您基础设施、数据库、应用开发及AI需求的极速平台。OCI让您能在高可用性、持续高性能环境中运行任何工作负载，且成本低于其他云服务。

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Oracle. In business, they say you can have better, cheaper, or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. With OCI, you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment, and spend less than you would with other clouds.

立即零门槛免费试用OCI，请访问oracle.com/npr。

To try OCI for free with zero commitment, go to oracle.com/npr.

本内容由Bombas为您呈现。近三成马拉松选手因水泡被迫退赛。Bombas跑步袜采用战略缓冲设计，向水泡说再见。访问brendabombas.com/npr，使用优惠码NPR可享首单八折。

This message comes from Bombas. Nearly thirty percent of marathoners end their race blistered. Bombas running socks are strategically cushioned to help say bye to blisters. Brendabombas.com/npr, and use code NPR for 20% off your first purchase.