研究称智能手机普及或与出生率下降相关

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🤔️小作业：

1. According to the passage, which of the following is NOT mentioned as a possible reason for the fertility decline linked to iPhones?

A. Young people socializing more on phones and less in person.

B. Increased access to pornography through smartphones.

C. Young people using phones to find better information on contraception.

D. The Great Recession reducing economic opportunities for young people.

无注释原文：

Why Are Birthrates Down? Two New Studies Point to Phones.

From: The New York Times

The enduring mystery of the fertility decline has a new culprit: the smartphone.

Experts have long wondered if phones played a role in the birthrate decline — which began in 2007, the same year that Apple introduced the iPhone — but until now there had not been hard evidence to prove it.

Two new papers, one published Monday and the other in May, are the first academic endeavors that test whether the smartphone was a cause.

They are the most recent efforts to explain the sweeping fertility rate decline in the United States and other countries over the past 20 years. Researchers have already looked at contraception use, abortion rates, rising levels of female education and even the popular television show “16 and Pregnant.”

Proving phones caused the decline is a tricky endeavor. There were a number of major events in those years, including the Great Recession, and isolating smartphone use is difficult.

The gold standard for scientific evidence is known as random assignment. It compares outcomes for people randomly chosen to receive a treatment (like getting a smartphone) with people who are not.

But that is not possible when it comes to ferreting out reasons for declining fertility.

So researchers sought out data about smartphones that introduced randomness.

Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College, and Ezekiel Hooper, her student, used the spotty early rollout of the iPhone as a way to isolate the effects of the phone on fertility. The first iPhone was released in June 2007, they wrote, and was available only on the AT&T network until February 2011. The study compared fertility rates in U.S. counties that had near-universal AT&T coverage with counties that had little or none.

Their paper, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the iPhone caused as much as half of the fertility decline between 2007 and 2011. The most pronounced effects were among young people aged 15 to 24.

What happened in the counties with iPhones? One theory, Professor Myers said, is that young people began to socialize more on their phones and less in person, and consequently were less likely to have sex and become pregnant.

Professor Myers said iPhones may also have made pornography more accessible, which led young people to substitute it for sex, or young people may have used them to obtain better information on avoiding pregnancy, including contraception and abortion.

Phillip B. Levine, an economist at Wellesley College, said he was “a little jealous” of the Middlebury data, which he said provided a real insight into a potential driver of a major social change.

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注：完整题目见本文开头；中文文本为纽约时报官方译文，仅供参考

含注释全文：

Why Are Birthrates Down? Two New Studies Point to Phones.

From: The New York Times

The enduring mystery of the fertility decline has a new culprit: the smartphone.

生育率下降这个长期未解之谜如今又出现了一个新的罪魁祸首：智能手机。

enduring /ɪnˈdʒʊə.rɪŋ/ 表示“持久的；持续的”，英文解释为“existing for a long time”如：the enduring appeal of cartoons 卡通片经久不衰的魅力。

1）表示“罪犯；造成破坏（问题）的人；过失者；责任人”，英文解释为“the person who is guilty of a crime or doing something wrong”

2）表示“问题的起因；罪魁祸首”，英文解释为“a fact or situation that is the reason for something bad happening”举个🌰：Children in this country are getting much too fat, and sugar and sweets are the main culprits. 该国儿童过于肥胖，糖和甜食是罪魁祸首。

Experts have long wondered if phones played a role in the birthrate decline — which began in 2007, the same year that Apple introduced the iPhone — but until now there had not been hard evidence to prove it.

长期以来，专家们一直怀疑手机可能在出生率下降中发挥了作用——因为出生率下降恰好始于2007年，这一年正是苹果推出iPhone的年份，但此前一直缺乏能够证明这一点的确凿证据。

Two new papers, one published Monday and the other in May, are the first academic endeavors that test whether the smartphone was a cause.

今年5月和本周一相继发表的两篇新论文是首批尝试检验智能手机是否为原因之一的学术研究。

美式 endeavor 英式 endeavour /enˈdev.ər/ 可以作名词，也可以作动词，表示“努力；奋力”，英文解释为“to try to do something”举个🌰：Engineers are endeavoring to locate the source of the problem. 工程师们正竭尽全力查找问题的根源。

They are the most recent efforts to explain the sweeping fertility rate decline in the United States and other countries over the past 20 years. Researchers have already looked at contraception use, abortion rates, rising levels of female education and even the popular television show “16 and Pregnant.”

这是研究人员近年来为解释过去20年美国及其他国家生育率全面下降所做的最新尝试。此前，他们已经考察过避孕措施使用情况、堕胎率、女性受教育程度提高，甚至连热门真人秀《少女妈妈》都被纳入研究范围。

sweep /swiːp/ 作动词，可以表示“风行，风靡，迅速蔓延，迅速传播；席卷；横扫”，英文解释为“to quickly spread through and influence an area”举个🌰：A flu epidemic is sweeping through Moscow. 一场流感正在莫斯科迅速传播。

📺电视剧《王冠》（The Crown）中的台词提到：Independence is sweeping across the continent. 独立运动席卷这片大陆。

📺动画片《辛普森一家》（The Simpsons）中的台词提到：A plague is sweeping through Springfield. 一场瘟疫正席卷斯普林菲尔德。

📍sweeping 作形容词，1）表示“影响广泛的；大范围的；根本性的；意义深远的”，英文解释为“having an important effect on a large part of sth”如：sweeping changes 彻底变化，举个🌰：They were given sweeping powers to search homes. 他们授予入户搜查的极大权力。

🎬电影《沉默》（Silence）中的台词提到：He wrote those words during the most sweeping persecution of all. 他写下这些话时 正经历着最为残酷的迫害。

2）sweeping statement/generalization表示“泛泛之谈；一概而论的说法；过于笼统的概括”，英文解释为“something that you say or write that is too general and that has not been carefully thought about”举个🌰：Sweeping generalizations about this complex and difficult situation are not helpful. 对这种复杂困难的情形作泛泛之谈是没有用的。

fertility /fəˈtɪl.ə.ti/ 表示“富饶；丰产；生殖力；能生育性；可繁殖性”，英文解释为“the state of being fertile”如：a fertility symbol 生殖力的象征，declining fertility rates 下降的生育率，the fertility of the soil/land 土壤的肥沃；土地的丰饶，a god of fertility 丰收之神，fertility treatment (= medical help given to a person to help them have a baby) 不孕症治疗。

contraception /ˌkɑːn.trəˈsep.ʃən/ 表示“避孕（法）；节育（法）”，英文解释为“(the use of) any of various methods intended to prevent a woman becoming pregnant”举个🌰：They offer impartial advice on contraception. 他们提供公正客观的避孕建议。

abortion /əˈbɔː.ʃən/ 表示“（通常指通过手术进行的）堕胎，人工流产”，英文解释为“If a woman has an abortion, she ends her pregnancy deliberately so that the baby is not born alive.”举个🌰：He and his girlfriend had been going out together for a year when she had an abortion. 他的女友流产时，他和她已经交往了一年时间。

Proving phones caused the decline is a tricky endeavor. There were a number of major events in those years, including the Great Recession, and isolating smartphone use is difficult.

要证明手机导致生育率下降并非易事。包括全球金融危机在内，那些年发生了许多重大事件，将智能手机的使用单独剥离出来加以分析难度相当之大。

the Great Recession /ˌɡreɪt rɪˈseʃ.ən/ 表示“（21世纪头十年末期的）经济大衰退”，英文解释为“the period of decrease in wealth, industrial production, and employment that was experienced all over the world in the late 2000s ”

The gold standard for scientific evidence is known as random assignment. It compares outcomes for people randomly chosen to receive a treatment (like getting a smartphone) with people who are not.

科学证据的黄金标准是随机试验，也就是将随机选出的接受某种干预（如获得智能手机）的人群与未接受干预的人群的结果进行比较。

But that is not possible when it comes to ferreting out reasons for declining fertility.

但在追寻生育率下滑的原因时，这种方法并不适用。

ferret /ˈfer.ɪt/ sth out表示“搜寻出，搜索出”，英文解释为“to find out a piece of information or find someone or something, after looking in many places or asking many questions”举个🌰：I know his name but I haven't managed to ferret out where he lives. 我知道他的名字，不过我还没有查出他住在哪儿。

So researchers sought out data about smartphones that introduced randomness.

于是，研究人员转而寻找与智能手机相关、能够引入随机性的数据。

Caitlin Myers, an economist at Middlebury College, and Ezekiel Hooper, her student, used the spotty early rollout of the iPhone as a way to isolate the effects of the phone on fertility. The first iPhone was released in June 2007, they wrote, and was available only on the AT&T network until February 2011. The study compared fertility rates in U.S. counties that had near-universal AT&T coverage with counties that had little or none.

明德学院的经济学家凯特琳·迈尔斯和她的学生以西结·胡珀利用iPhone早期推广覆盖面的参差不齐剥离出手机对生育率的影响。他们在论文中写道，第一代iPhone于2007年6月发布，直至2011年2月前只能使用AT&T网络。研究比较了AT&T信号几乎全面覆盖的美国县与几乎没有覆盖地区的生育率变化。

spotty /ˈspɒt.i/ 1）表示“（质量）参差不齐的，有好有坏的”，英文解释为“bad in some parts”举个🌰：She has a fairly spotty work record. 她的工作业绩时好时坏。

2）表示“（人的皮肤）多丘疹的，多粉刺的”，英文解释为“used to describe a person with spots on their skin”举个🌰：I knew him when he was just a spotty youth. 在他还是个满脸粉刺的少年时，我就认识他了。

Their paper, published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the iPhone caused as much as half of the fertility decline between 2007 and 2011. The most pronounced effects were among young people aged 15 to 24.

他们发表于国家经济研究局(NBER)的论文发现，iPhone造成了2007年至2011年间生育率下降的一半左右。其中影响最明显的是15至24岁的年轻群体。

bureau /ˈbjʊərəʊ/ 1）表示“（政府部门的）局，处，科”，英文解释为“a government organization”如：the Federal Bureau of Investigation 联邦调查局。

2）表示“（搜集或提供信息的）办事处，办公室，机构”，英文解释为“an organization or a business that collects or provides information”举个🌰：Her disappearance was reported to the police department's Missing Persons Bureau. 她的失踪被报到了警察局的失踪人口调查处。

pronounced /prəˈnaʊnst/ 表示“明显的；明确的”，英文解释为“very noticeable or certain”举个🌰：She's a woman of very pronounced views which she is not afraid to air. 她是个从不讳言其观点的女人。

What happened in the counties with iPhones? One theory, Professor Myers said, is that young people began to socialize more on their phones and less in person, and consequently were less likely to have sex and become pregnant.

那么，在iPhone普及的地区究竟发生了什么？迈尔斯教授说，一种理论认为，年轻人开始更多地通过手机进行社交，减少了面对面交往，因此发生性行为和怀孕的可能性也随之降低。

consequently /ˈkɒn.sɪ.kwənt.li/ 表示“因此；所以”，英文解释为“as a result”举个🌰：I spent most of my money in the first week and consequently had very little to eat by the end of the holiday. 我在假期的第一周用掉了大部分钱，因此假期快结束时我都没什么吃的了。

Professor Myers said iPhones may also have made pornography more accessible, which led young people to substitute it for sex, or young people may have used them to obtain better information on avoiding pregnancy, including contraception and abortion.

迈尔斯教授表示，iPhone可能也让色情内容更容易获取，导致年轻人用它替代了性行为，也可能因为年轻人能够通过手机获得了更多避免怀孕的信息，包括避孕措施和堕胎。

substitute /ˈsʌb.stɪ.tʃuːt/ 1）作名词，表示“代替者；代替物；代用品；（体育比赛中的）替补队员”，英文解释为“a person or thing that you use or have instead of the one you normally use or have”，如：a meat substitute 肉食替代品。

2）作动词，表示“用…代替，代之以”，英文解释为“to use something or someone instead of another thing or person”举个🌰：You can substitute oil for butter in this recipe. 这道菜中你可以用食用油代替黄油。

Phillip B. Levine, an economist at Wellesley College, said he was “a little jealous” of the Middlebury data, which he said provided a real insight into a potential driver of a major social change.

韦尔斯利学院的经济学家菲利普·莱文表示，他对明德学院使用的数据“有点嫉妒”，认为这些数据为理解一项重大社会变迁的潜在驱动因素提供了真实洞见。

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