JetBlue Flight 1416 was just minutes into its trip from Long Beach, Calif., to Austin, Tex., on Sept. 18 when Scott Welch, a passenger in Seat 5A, heard a suspicious pop. Moments later, smoke began to fill the cabin, clogging the air to the point that he could see only a few rows in front of him, he said. The starboard engine of the Airbus A320, he soon learned, had blown.

9月18日，捷蓝航空公司(JetBlue)的1416号航班从加利福尼亚州长滩市飞往得克萨斯州奥斯汀市，起飞仅几分钟后，座位号为5A的乘客斯科特·韦尔奇(Scott Welch)听到一声可疑的爆裂声。不久之后，机舱内浓烟密布，他只能看到前面几排。他很快得知，这架空客A320的右舷引擎爆炸了。

As other passengers began to cry, and pray, Mr. Welch strapped on his oxygen mask and pondered his fate.

当其他乘客开始痛哭、祈祷，韦尔奇戴上氧气面罩，开始思考自己的命运。

“I understood that I might be going to meet God,” Mr. Welch, 34, recalled. He thought, “If this is my time, this is my time.”

“我知道我可能要去见上帝了，”34岁的韦尔奇回忆说。他当时想，“如果这是命中注定，那就听天由命吧。”

Faced with his own mortality, he could have closed his eyes in quiet reflection. Instead, Mr. Welch, a sports photographer, responded in a distinctly 2014 manner: He reached for his Samsung Galaxy Note 3 smartphone, thrust it into the murky air and pressed the record button. He even found the presence of mind to record a smiling selfie.

面对死亡，他本可以闭上眼睛，安静地沉思。不过，身为体育摄影师的韦尔奇回应的方式显然具有2014年的特色：他拿出三星Galaxy Note 3智能手机，伸向弥漫的烟雾，按下了录制键。他甚至还镇静地录下了自己的笑脸。

Never mind that the plane landed safely soon after, making the mechanical failure a relative nonevent. The pulse-quickening, you-are-there footage captured by Mr. Welch and other passengers helped propel the story to national news. Mr. Welch’s two brief videos, meanwhile, went viral; one attracted more than one million views.

不久后飞机安全降落，那个机械故障变成了虚惊一场。韦尔奇和其他乘客捕捉到的令人心跳加速的现场视频让这个故事成了全国新闻。与此同时，韦尔奇的两个短视频被疯狂转发，其中一个视频被观看了100多万次。

It is no longer enough to record seemingly every last moment of life with your smartphone, it seems. Near death is fair game, too.

用智能手机记录生命的每一个逝去的瞬间似乎还不够。濒死体验也是理所当然的拍摄对象。

Thanks to the Personal Video Industrial Complex — tens of millions of video-enabled smartphones, feeding countless hours daily to video-sharing behemoths like YouTube — rock concerts, presidential inaugurations, fourth-grade school plays and even midair near-disasters can all be considered “content” now, inspiring us all to tap our inner Edward R. Murrow and record the event for posterity.

由于“个人视频工业集团”的发展——上亿部能拍摄视频的智能手机每天为YouTube这样的视频分享巨头提供数不清的视频——如今，摇滚音乐会、总统就职仪式、四年级校园剧，甚至连近乎空难的事件都能被认为是“内容”，鼓励我们所有人像爱德华·R·默罗(Edward R. Murrow)那样为后代记录这些事件。

But even as public gatherings, from the world-historical to the intimate, evolve into a sea of glowing blue screens, a backlash has started to take root. An improbable assortment of critics — mindfulness gurus, twee indie rockers, even, seemingly, Pope Francis — have started to implore these armchair videographers to drop their phones and actually start living again.

但是，随着公共聚会——从世界级、历史性的聚会到私人聚会——演变为闪亮蓝屏的海洋，强烈反对的呼声也越来越高。各种批评家——正念的上师，矫情的独立摇滚歌手，甚至似乎包括教皇方济各(Pope Francis)——开始恳求这些脱离现实的摄影师们放下手机，重新开始真正的生活。

To live the moment or record the moment? It’s become a defining dilemma of the iPhone age.

活在当下还是记录当下？这成了iPhone时代最典型的两难选择。

“Is it more important that we actually live these experiences than obsessively record and upload them to the cloud?” asked William Powers, a research scientist at the M.I.T. Media Lab and author of “Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age.” “Absolutely. Will most people therefore learn to be more in-the-moment and swear off excessive pictures and videos? I doubt it.”

“我们真正地感受这些体验更重要，还是着魔似地把它们拍摄下来上传到云端更重要？”麻省理工学院媒体实验室的研究科学家威廉姆·鲍尔斯(William Powers)问道。他著有《哈姆雷特的黑莓手机：在数字时代过上好生活》(Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age)一书。“答案无疑是前者。大多数人是否会因此学会更在乎当下、下定决心不再拍摄过多的照片和视频？我猜他们不会。”

For news obsessives, such talk might conjure images of the wildly viral Vatican shots after Pope Francis’s election, which made the rounds last year. The images, posted to social media by NBC News, purported to show a contrast between the relatively phone-free crowd in St. Peter’s Square that greeted Pope Benedict XVI’s election 2005 and the thousand-points-of-smartphone-light that welcomed Pope Francis in 2013.

对爱看新闻的人来说，这样的话可能会让他们想起去年教皇方济各当选后的梵蒂冈拍照照片，这些照片被疯狂转发。美国全国广播公司(NBC)把这些照片发布到社交媒体上，意在进行对比：2005年教皇本笃十六世(Pope Benedict XVI)当选后，群众在圣彼得广场欢迎他，几乎没有人拿手机拍照；而2013年群众欢迎教皇方济各时，现场却闪动着成千上万个智能手机拍照的光点。

True, the story turned out to be a bit more complicated. As The Washington Post later reported, the “before” shot was actually from the funeral procession of Pope John Paul II, a setting where smartphone use would seem inappropriate. Even so, the “after” shot proved indelible, perhaps even to the pontiff himself.

没错，这个故事后来变得有点复杂。《华盛顿邮报》(Washington Post)后来报道说，“之前”的那张照片实际上是教皇约翰·保罗二世(Pope John Paul II)的送葬队伍，在那种场合使用智能手机会显得不合适。即便如此，“之后”那张照片被证明是不可磨灭的，甚至对教皇本人来说也是如此。

In a public appearance at the Vatican in August, he warned young people about wasting too much time on “futile things,” like the Internet and mobile phones, which “should simplify and improve the quality of life, but distract attention away from what is really important.”

8月份，教皇方济各在梵蒂冈公开露面时，告诫年轻人不要在“无用的事情”上浪费太多时间，比如互联网和手机，他认为那些东西“应该用来简化生活，提高生活质量，不应该把注意力从真正重要的事情上转移走”。

Therein lies the overlap in the Venn diagrams of Pope Francis and Jack White. Sporting a haircut that made him look like a goth version of Clara Bow, the former White Stripes rocker appeared on “Conan” this past June, where he and the host went on a lengthy diatribe about the ubiquitous glowing screens that mar so many public performances.

杰克·怀特(Jack White)与教皇方济各和的想法不谋而合。他是已解散的白色条纹乐队(White Stripes)的摇滚歌手，今年6月在《柯南秀》(Conan)中亮相时，他和主持人对无处不在的闪亮屏幕进行了长时间抨击，认为它们毁掉了很多公共表演。他上节目时的发型看起来像哥特摇滚版的克拉拉·鲍(Clara Bow)。

“I’ve had the experience when I go out and perform in front of people where all I see is a sea of iPads,” Conan O’Brien said with exasperation. “You can’t even see their faces.”

“我有过这样的经历，我出去给人们表演，但我看到的只有一大片iPad，”柯南·奥布莱恩(Conan O’Brien)恼怒地说，“我甚至看不见他们的脸。”

Mr. White agreed, adding that he was forced to instruct the audience on his most recent tour to put down their devices and “just enjoy this with our eyes and our ears.” Far from being irked, he said, audiences actually applauded. (Acts like the Eagles, Prince and She & Him have recently gone the same route.)

怀特同意柯南的观点。他补充说，在最近的巡演中，他只好请求观众放下电子设备，“只用我们的眼睛和耳朵来享受这一刻”。他说，观众非但没被激怒，反而鼓起掌来（老鹰乐队[Eagles]、王子[Prince]和She & Him乐队最近也这样做过）。

Consider that one small victory for the concept of “flow,” the voguish psychological term, which refers to the heightened satisfaction and enjoyment derived from clearing out extraneous concerns and immersing yourself, Zen-like, in the task at hand, whether it be BASE jumping off El Capitan in Yosemite or polishing off a plate of baby back ribs.

我们可以把它看作“心流”(flow)概念的小小胜利。这个时髦的心理学概念指的是一种极大的满足和享受，它源自清除无关紧要的忧虑，像坐禅一样让自己沉浸到眼前的任务中，不管是在约塞米蒂的埃尔卡皮坦山上定点跳伞还是狼吞虎咽一盘背小排。

Flow would seem a natural concern at sacred life moments, like weddings. But those, too, have become smartphone-saturated, as guests seem increasingly content to take in the pageantry through the electronic third eye.

心流与生命中的一些庄严时刻似乎有天然联系，比如婚礼。但是现在婚礼也被智能手机占领了，因为宾客们似乎通过第三只电子眼观看壮观场面才更满足。

For some, like media moguls and celebrities, the issue is privacy. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian threatened to confiscate any cellphone that popped up at their wedding in Florence, Italy, last May, according to a Radar Online report. Similarly, Nick Denton, the head of the Gawker empire, asked guests for “full personal presence” by checking smartphones at the door before his wedding to his partner, Derrence Washington, last May. “You can tend to your virtual presence — and your Twitter and Instagram followers — the next day,” he told those invited.

对某些人来说，比如媒体大亨和名人，关键问题是隐私。据雷达在线(Radar Online)报道，去年5月，坎耶·韦斯特(Kanye West)和金·卡戴珊(Kim Kardashian)在意大利佛罗伦萨举办婚礼时，威胁要没收所有出现在婚礼上的手机。同样地，去年5月，高客传媒(Gawker)的总裁尼克·丹顿(Nick Denton)和伴侣德伦斯·华盛顿(Derrence Washington)举办婚礼时，要求宾客们“完全投入进来”，在门口检查智能手机。“你可以明天再去照看你的虚拟自我——以及你在Twitter和Instagram上的粉丝，”他对应邀者们说。

Child-rearing, too, has seen an invasion of “parentrazzi,” the phone-wielding paparazzis-in-spirit who clog the audience of every school play and dance recital (it must be said, the children themselves, YouTube stars from birth, often expect their every star turn to be immortalized, parents say).

养育子女的领地也被“父母狗仔队”侵占——那些有着狗仔队精神的父母们举起手机，妨碍每场校园戏剧和舞蹈表演的观众（父母们觉得，孩子们从出生起就是YouTube上的明星，他们期待孩子们的所有明星演出都能永远留存）。

It is enough to inspire other parents to put down their phones in protest. That was the point that Beth Feldman, a publicist in New Rochelle, N.Y., who writes a blog called Role Mommy, reached after her son’s sixth-grade spring concert last year, which she was forced to watch through a virtual kaleidoscope view, the action onstage refracted through multiple cellphones in front of her. “You get a prime seat to see your kid, and you’re craning your neck anyway,” she said with disgust.

这足以使其他父母想拿走他们的手机，以示抗议。这就是纽约州新罗谢尔市的公关员贝丝·费尔德曼(Beth Feldman)的看法。她在博客“妈咪的角色”(Role Mommy)中写道，去年她去观看儿子的六年级春季音乐会，台上的表演折射到她前面的多个手机屏幕上，她只能透过这个虚拟的万花筒观看表演。“为了观看孩子表演，我找了个最好的座位，但我还是得伸长脖子看，”她厌恶地写道。

As with any discussion involving social media, it’s easy to write off the phenomenon as a pandemic of narcissism. We live in a culture, after all, that can support a Tumblr called Selfies at Funerals, filled with precisely that.

和所有涉及社交媒体的讨论一样，这种现象很容易被简单解释为自恋的普遍流行。毕竟，我们的文化连“葬礼上的自拍”(Selfies at Funerals)这样的Tumblr账号都予以支持——上面真的全是那些照片。

Academics have made that connection. A 2013 study by Jean W. Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, and two colleagues, looked at more than 760,000 American books published between 1960 and 2008. It found that first-person plural pronouns (“we,” “us”) declined by 10 percent, while first-person singular pronouns (“I,” “me”) increased 42 percent. To Professor Twenge, an author of a 2009 book called “The Narcissism Epidemic,” this is part of the same societal shift. “That’s what video is: It’s my experience,” Professor Twenge said.

学者们也找到了这种联系。2013年，圣地亚哥州立大学的心理学教授珍·W·特文格(Jean W. Twenge)和两位同事进行了一项研究，他们检查了1960年至2008年美国出版的76万多本书，发现第一人称复数代词（“我们”）减少了10%，第一人称单数代词（“我”）增加了42%。特文格教授2009年曾出版《自恋流行病》(The Narcissism Epidemic)。在她看来，这反映的是同一个社会趋势。“视频的意思就是：这是我的经历，”特文格教授说。

She might get little debate from Scott Welch, the JetBlue chronicler, on that point.

记录捷蓝航空公司机械故障事件的斯科特·韦尔奇可能不这么认为。

“I sound hypocritical because of what I did,” Mr. Welch said, but he said he finds the widespread obsession to upload to the web every random moment in life “a little extreme.” Still, having been put in that position, he realizes that there are reasons beyond vanity to reach for your phone at life’s key moments.

“鉴于我所做的事情，我的话可能听起来有点虚伪，”韦尔奇说。但是他说他觉得把生活中的随便什么时刻都上传到网上的普遍强迫症“有点极端”。不过，他在那种情境下才意识到，在生命的关键时刻拿出手机拍照不只是因为虚荣。

“I was considering the fact that my family might not see me again,” he said. “After I started filming, that’s why I turned it on myself.” He added: “I wanted my family to see me smile.”

“我当时想的是我的家人可能再也见不到我了，”他说，“所以开始拍摄之后我把摄像头转向了自己。”他补充说：“我想让家人看见我在微笑。”

Then again, as soon as the video went viral (a distribution company pounced on it within hours, cutting him in for 60 percent of the licensing and YouTube proceeds), he knew that he had unwittingly joined a long list of YouTube micro-stars, all appearing to crane their necks to get their faces in front of the camera, as if to cement their destiny as witnesses to history.

那个视频被疯狂转发之后不久（一个发行公司在几小时内发现了它，向他收购60%的许可权和YouTube收益），这时他意识到自己无意中加入了数不清的YouTube小明星行列，这些明星似乎都伸长脖子把脸探到镜头前，好像是为了巩固自己作为历史见证人的命运。

He knows that it must look that way to the outside world.

他知道在外人看来是这样的。

“Great, now I’m the ‘JetBlue Selfie Guy,’ ” Mr. Welch said dismissively. “It’s the same critique I’d give to other people.”

“好极了，现在我是‘在捷蓝航空上自拍的那个家伙’，”韦尔奇不屑地说，“我对其他人也会这样批评的。”

Good. Thank you.