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The use of social media does not cause division so much as amplify it.
社會媒體的運用與其說是制造分歧，不如說是放大分歧。
The financial crisis of 2007-08 stoked popular anger at a wealthy elite that had left everyone else behind.
2007-08年的金融危機激起了對把其他人全都甩在身后的富人精英的公憤。
The culture wars have split voters by identity rather than class.
這場文化戰爭根據認同而不是階層分裂了選民。
Nor are social media alone in their power to polarise—just look at cable TV and talk radio.
在它們造成兩極分化的力量方面，社會媒體并非孤家寡人——只要看看的有線電視和電臺脫口秀節目即可。
But, whereas Fox News is familiar, social media platforms are new and still poorly understood.
但是，福克斯新聞是人所熟悉的，而社會媒體平臺卻是全新的，仍然未被充分了解的。
And, because of how they work, they wield extraordinary influence.
同時，由于它們的運作方式，社會媒體握有格外的影響力。
They make their money by putting photos, personal posts, news stories and ads in front of you.
它們靠把照片、個人的帖子、各種新聞故事和廣告推送到你面前來賺錢。
Because they can measure how you react, they know just how to get under your skin.
由于能夠評估你如何反應，它們懂得怎么激怒你。
They collect data about you in order to have algorithms to determine what will catch your eye, in an “attention economy” that keeps users scrolling, clicking and sharing again and again and again.
它們收集關于你的數據，是為了在讓用戶一遍又一遍地翻頁、點擊并分享的“眼球經濟中”，讓算法去決定什么會抓住你的注意力。
Anyone setting out to shape opinion can produce dozens of ads, analyse them and see which is hardest to resist.
任何打算左右輿論的人都能生產幾十廣告，分析并從中發現哪一個最難讓人拒絕。
The result is compelling: one study found that users in rich countries touch their phones 2,600 times a day.
結果觸目驚心：一項研究發現，在富裕國家，用戶每天觸摸手機2600次。
It would be wonderful if such a system helped wisdom and truth rise to the surface.
如果這樣一種體系有助于展示智慧披露真相，那就太好了。
But, whatever Keats said, truth is not beauty so much as it is hard work—especially when you disagree with it.
但是，無論濟慈是怎么說的，真相更多的是艱苦的工作，而不是美好之物——尤其是在人們對真相有異議的時候。
Everyone who has scrolled through Facebook knows how, instead of imparting wisdom, the system dishes out compulsive stuff that tends to reinforce people's biases.
每一個瀏覽過臉書的人都很清楚，這種體系是如何推出往往是強化人們偏見的偏執性內容的，而不是傳授智慧的。
This aggravates the politics of contempt that took hold, in the United States at least, in the 1990s.
這放大了在上世紀90年代至少是在美國已經成氣候的蔑視政治。
