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Smartphone addiction in South Korea
韩国人对智能手机依赖成瘾
Smombie apocalypse
“低头族”末日
In South Korea smartphone cases come with rings mounted on the back, to prevent clumsy owners from dropping them. This makes people look like they are literally married to their phones. In many of Seoul’s most Instagrammable coffee shops, couples on dates spend vastly more time looking at their screens than at each other. The ramifications go beyond the potentially dire consequences for romance.
在韩国，智能手机保护套的背面装有指环，以防笨手笨脚的主人滑落手机。这看起来就像人和手机结婚一样。在首尔许多网红Ins咖啡店里，情侣们在约会时盯着屏幕的时间要远远多于盯着对方的时间。这不仅会破坏他们之间的浪漫，而且还会带来其他后果。
Walk around the streets of Seoul or any other South Korean city, and there is a real risk of bumping into people whose eyes are glued to their smartphone screens. Insurers estimate that around 370 traffic accidents annually are caused by pedestrians using smartphones. That figure does not include those who bump into lamp posts and the like while perusing the latest cat videos.
走在首尔或其他韩国城市的街道上，很容易撞到目不转睛盯着智能手机屏幕的人。据保险公司估计，每年约有370起交通事故是由行人走路看手机造成的。这一数字还不包括那些在观看最新喵星人视频时撞到灯柱等物体的人。
The government initially tried to fight the “smombie” (a portmanteau of “smartphone” and “zombie”) epidemic by distributing hundreds of stickers around cities imploring people to “be safe” and look up. This seems to have had little effect even though, in Seoul at least, it recently replaced the stickers with sturdier plastic boards.
“低头族”一词“smombie”是由“smartphone智能手机”和“zombie僵尸”合成，这种人越来越多，政府最初试图通过在城市周围分发数百张贴纸呼吁人们注意安全，抬头看路。这种做法似乎收效甚微，尽管最近，至少在首尔，政府用更结实的塑料板取代了贴纸。
Instead of appealing to people’s good sense, the authorities have therefore resorted to trying to save them from being run over. Early last year, they began to trial floor-level traffic lights in smombie hotspots in central Seoul. Since then, the experiment has been extended around and beyond the capital. For the moment, the government is retaining old-fashioned eye-level pedestrian lights as well. But in future, the way to look at a South Korean crossroads may be down.
因而，政府是将“低头族”从车祸中拯救出来，而不是唤醒其安全意识。去年年初，开始在首尔市中心“低头族”多见区域试行地面交通灯。从那之后，这个实验逐步扩展到首都周边甚至更远的地方。目前，政府还保留了老式的与眼睛水平的行人信号灯。但在未来，在韩国，看红绿灯的方式可能会有所改变。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
