Narcissism is defined as excessive self-love or self-centredness. In Greek mythology， Narcissus1 fell in love when he saw his reflection in water： He gazed so long， and he eventually died. Today， the quintessential2 image is not someone staring at his reflection but into his mobile phone. While we pine away for that perfect Snapchat filter or track our likes on Instagram， the mobile phone has become a vortex of social media that sucks us in and feeds our narcissistic tendencies.3 Or so it would seem.
　　But people have long used media to see reflections of themselves. Long before mobile phones or even photography， diaries were kept as a way to understand oneself and the world one inhabits. In the 18th and 19th centuries， as secular4 diaries became more popular，middle-class New Englanders， particularly white women， wrote about their everyday lives and the world around them. These diaries were not a place into which they poured their innermost thoughts and desires， but rather a place to chronicle the social world around them—what’s going on around the house， what they did today， who came to visit， who was born or who died. The diaries captured the everyday routines of mid-19thcentury life， with women diarists in particular focused not on themselves but on their families and their communities.

在手機的社交媒体上分享生活点滴，或许是近几年才出现的新生事物。但在智能手机出现以前，人们便已热衷于此。那个时代的人会写日记、拍照片，还会把这些东西拿出来与朋友分享，一切都那么相似。唯一不同的是，今天，我们的每一条动态，都成了平台提供者的大数据之一。在看似免费的服务背后，却有着一条价值上亿的利益链。

　　Diaries today are， for the most part， private. These New England diaries， in contrast， were commonly shared. Young women who were married would send their diaries home to their parents as a way of maintaining kin relations. When family or friends came to visit， it was not uncommon to sit down and go through one’s journal together. Late 19th-century Victorian parents would often read aloud their children’s diaries at the end of the day. These were not journals with locks on them， meant only for the eyes of the diarist， but a means of sharing experiences with others.
　　Diaries are not the only media that people have used to document lives and share them with others. Scrapbooks5， photo albums， baby books and even slide shows are all ways in which we have done this in the past， to various audiences. Together， they suggest that we have long used media as a means of creating traces of our lives. We do this to understand ourselves， to see trends in our behaviour that we can’t in lived experiences. We create traces as part of our identity work and as part of our memory work. Sharing mundane6 and everyday life events can reinforce social connection and intimacy. For example， you take a picture of your child’s first birthday. It is not only a developmental milestone： The photo also reinforces the identity of the family unit itself. The act of taking the photo and proudly sharing it further reaffirms one as a good and attentive parent. In other words， the media traces of others figure in our own identities. 　　By comparing old technologies with new technologies that enable us to document ourselves and the world around us， we can begin to identify what is really different about the contemporary networked environment. Building on a 20th-century broadcast model of media， today’s social media platforms are， by and large7， free to use， unlike historical diaries， scrapbooks and photo albums， which people had to buy. Today， advertising subsidises8 our use of networked platforms. Therefore these platforms are incentivised9 to encourage use of their networks to build larger audiences and to better target them. Our pictures， our posts and our likes are commodified10—that is， they are used to create value through increasingly targeted advertising.
　　I don’t want to suggest that， historically， using media to create traces of ourselves occurred outside of a commercial system. We have long used commercial products to document our lives and to share them with others. Sometimes even the content was commercialised. Early 19th-century scrapbooks were full of commercial material that people would use to document their lives and the world around them. It’s easy to think that once you buy a journal or scrapbook， you own it. But，of course， the examples of sending diaries back and forth， or of Victorian parents reading their children’s diaries aloud， complicate notions of singular ownership.

　　Commercial access to our media traces is also historically complex. For example， people used to buy their cameras and film from Kodak， and then send film back to Kodak to be developed. In these cases， Kodak had access to all of the traces， or memories， of its customers but the company didn’t commodify these traces in the ways that social media platforms do today. Kodak sold customers its technology and its service. The company didn’t give it away in exchange for mining their customers’ traces to sell ads targeted at them in the way that social media platforms use our traces to target us today.11
　　Instead of social media merely connecting us， it has become a cult12 of notifications， continually trying to draw us in with the promise of social connectivity—it’s someone’s birthday， someone liked your picture， etc. I’m not arguing that such social connectivity isn’t meaningful or real， but I believe it’s unfair to presume that people are increasingly narcissistic for using these platforms. There’s a multibillion-dollar industry pulling us into our smartphones， relying on a longstanding human need for communication. We share our everyday experiences because it helps us to feel connected to others， and it always has. The urge to be present on social media is much more complex than simply narcissism. Social media of all kinds not only enable people to see their reflections， but to feel their connections as well. 　　自恋意即過分自爱或者以自我为中心。在希腊神话中，那喀索斯爱上了他在水中的倒影，长久地凝视，最终死去。而在今天，这个典型的形象不再是凝视着自己的倒影，而是盯着自己的手机。当我们为了在色拉布上寻找完美的滤镜而费尽心思，或者不停地在照片墙上查看谁给我们点了赞时，手机上的社交软件就像旋涡一样把我们吸入，滋养着我们的自恋之情。起码，看上去是这么回事。
　　其实，人们通过媒介来反观自己的行为早已有之。早在智能手机甚至摄影术发明之前，人们就通过日记来了解自己和周围的这个世界了。在18和19世纪，随着普通大众写日记日益流行，新英格兰的中产阶级，尤其是白人女性，也把她们的日常生活和周围的事都一一写了下来。她们并没有在日记中倾诉自己内心深处的想法和欲求，而是单纯地记录下自己的社交生活——家里发生什么啦，今天干什么啦，谁来做客啦，有没有人出生或者死亡啦，等等。这些日记捕捉了19世纪中期的生活日常。尤其是女性的日记，因为她们的关注点不在自己，而在家庭和社会。
　　现在的日记大多是私人性质的，而那个时候的日记恰恰相反，是相互翻看的。年轻女性结婚之后，会把日记寄给父母，以保持亲密的关系。亲人或朋友来访时，一起坐下来翻看日记也是常见的场景。19世纪末维多利亚时代的父母常在睡前朗读孩子的日记。这些日记没有锁，代表不是只有写的人才能看，而是用来和他人分享的。
　　要记录和分享生活，日记并不是唯一的媒介。剪贴簿、相册、宝宝成长手册，甚至幻灯片，都是过去我们向不同观众展示生活经历的方式。这些足以证明，我们早就会用各种媒介来记录生活的轨迹了。我们借此来了解自己；当时未必能看清的人生走向，也能在回溯中获得一些启发。在创造人生轨迹的过程中，我们构建了自己的身份，也留下了一段记忆。而分享平淡的生活琐事，则可以加强与他人的联系和亲密感。比如，当你给孩子的周岁生日拍下一张照片时，这张照片不仅象征着孩子成长的里程碑，也强化了整个家庭身份的联系。而拍照并骄傲地向他人展示这张照片的行为，则进一步确认了你无微不至的好家长形象。换句话说，虽然记录的是别人的事情，可我们构建的却是自己的身份。
　　通过比较我们现在和过去在记录自己和周围世界时所用的新旧技术，我们就能明白现在的网络环境究竟有何不同。今天的社交媒体平台，是基于20世纪的广播模式，因此一般来说是免费的，不像过去的日记、剪贴簿或者相册，要买来才能用。使用社交平台带来的成本由广告收入来补贴。这激励了这些平台通过鼓励人们使用其网络来扩大用户群，找准广告投放对象。我们的照片、发言和点赞都被商品化了——也就是说，通过不断将广告最精准地匹配给用户，我们发布的信息都创造了价值。
　　这么说并不意味着过去我们对生活轨迹的记录就可以排除在商业圈范围外。一直以来，我们在记录和分享生活时，都在使用商业产品。有时甚至连记录的内容也被商业化了。19世纪早期的剪贴簿上也有很多商业性质的内容，人们会以此来记录生活和周围的世界。人们通常觉得，既然你买了这本日记或者这个剪贴簿，那么它就属于你了。但是，来回传递日记，或者像维多利亚时期的父母那样朗读孩子日记的这些行为，无疑使得单一的所有权变得复杂了。
　　回溯历史，我们在使用媒介的过程中商业的进入也是一件复杂的事。比如，以前人们会从柯达公司买相机和胶卷，然后再把胶卷送还给柯达公司去冲印。在这些情况下，柯达公司拥有用户的所有生活轨迹和记忆，但是他们却没有像现在的社交媒体平台那样将这些东西商品化。柯达卖给用户的是技术和服务，而不是像如今的社交媒体平台那样，靠免费赠送来换取用户的信息，再把精准投放给他们的广告卖出去。
　　社交媒体不仅让我们彼此联系，也让我们狂热地惦记着各种通知，并不断试图通过承诺增强社会联系将我们牢牢吸引住——到某人的生日啦，有人赞了你的照片啦，等等。我不是说这种社会联系是毫无意义的或者虚幻的，但是我认为使用这些平台并不能说明人们变得越来越自恋了。吸引我们拿起手机、依赖一种长期存在的人类交流需求的，是一个几十亿美金的产业。我们分享自己的日常经历，因为这样可以让我们感觉到和他人的联系，过去如此，现在也是如此。想要在社交平台上保持在线，并不仅仅是自恋就能说通的。各种各样的社交平台不仅仅让人们看到自己，更能让我们感觉到与旁人的联系。
　　1. Narcissus： 那喀索斯，希腊神话人物。他美貌出众，因拒绝回声女神的求爱而受到惩罚，爱上了自己在水中的倒影，最后憔悴而死。
　　2. quintessential： 典型的。
　　3. pine： 衰弱，憔悴；Snapchat： 色拉布，美国的一款“阅后即焚”的图片分享软件；filter： 滤镜；Instagram：照片墙，也是一款图片分享软件；vortex： 旋涡，涡流。
　　4. secular： 世俗的，非宗教的。
　　5. scrapbook： 剪贴簿，是一本空白的册子，可以把喜欢的报纸文章或图片剪下来贴上去。
　　6. mundane： 单调的，平凡的。
　　7. by and large： 总体上，一般来讲。
　　8. subsidise： 给……津贴，补助。
　　9. incentivise： 刺激，激励。
　　10. commodify： 商品化。
　　11. give away： 赠送，免费分发；mine： 开采，此处用比喻义。
　　12. cult： 狂热崇拜的对象。