I’m a millennial computer scientist who also writes books and runs a blog. Demographically speaking I should be a heavy social media user, but that is not the case. I’ve never had a social media account.
我是一个千禧年计算机科学家，同时也写书和博客。从概率上来说，我应该是一个社交媒体的重度使用者。但是情况不是这样的。我从来没有过社交媒体账户。
At the moment, this makes me an outlier, but I think many more people should follow my lead and quit these services. There are many issues with social media, from its corrosion of civic life to its cultural shallowness, but the argument I want to make here is more pragmatic: You should quit social media because it can hurt your career.
在现在来看，这使我成了一个局外人。但是我认为应该有更多的人跟随我的主张并放弃这些服务。社交媒体有许多的问题：从它侵蚀公民的生活到它在文化方面的肤浅。但是我在这里想讨论更加的务实：你应该放弃社交媒体，因为它会损害你的职业。
This claim, of course, runs counter to our current understanding of social media’s role in the professional sphere. We’ve been told that it’s important to tend to your so-called social media brand, as this provides you access to opportunities you might otherwise miss and supports the diverse contact network you need to get ahead. Many people in my generation fear that without a social media presence, they would be invisible to the job market.
当然，这种主张与专业领域目前对社交媒体作用的理解是背道而驰的。大家一直都说注重你的所谓社交媒体品牌是很重要的，因为它可以提供给你你可能错过的机会以及提供给你成功所需要的各种网络节点。我这一代中的许多人都害怕如果没有社交媒体的存在，他们将会注意不到就业市场。
In a recent New York magazine essay, Andrew Sullivan recalled when he started to feel obligated to update his blog every half-hour or so. It seemed as if everyone with a Facebook account and a smartphone now felt pressured to run their own high-stress, one-person media operation, and “the once-unimaginable pace of the professional blogger was now the default for everyone,” he wrote.
在最近的一篇纽约杂志文章中，Andrew Sullivan回忆了他开始感到有责任大约每半个小时就要更新他的博客的情形。似乎现在每个拥有智能手机和Facebook账户的人对运营他们自己的高压力的自媒体感到压力，并且以前专业博主那种难以想象的节奏现在已经成为每个人的常态。
I think this behavior is misguided. In a capitalist economy, the market rewards things that are rare and valuable. Social media use is decidedly not rare or valuable. Any 16-year-old with a smartphone can invent a hashtag or repost a viral article. The idea that if you engage in enough of this low-value activity, it will somehow add up to something of high value in your career is the same dubious alchemy that forms the core of most snake oil and flimflam in business.
我认为这种行为是一种误导。在资本主义社会，在资本经济中，市场会回报那些稀有和有价值的东西。社交媒体的使用显然既不稀缺，也没有价值。然和一个年满16岁有智能手机的人都可以创造标签或者转发一篇热文。如果你从事足够多的这种低价值的活动，以某种方式就会形成你职业中的高价值的东西，这种想法和让人怀疑的炼金术是一样的，而它构成了万能油和商业欺骗的核心。
