Recently, the manufacturers of Bubble Wrap, the alarmingly addictive packaging that was apparently a brand name all along, announced that they would be redesigning their product. The new version — the horror — will not pop. As Jaime Fuller notes on Daily Intelligencer, the newly imagined product will be called iBubble Wrap, “its Rice Krispies-esque melodies replaced by bubbles that transfer air between one another so they never deflate.” 最近,泡泡包装膜的制造商Bubble Wrap(没错,这个闻名的产品就是品牌名)打算推出一款无法捏爆的气泡包装,它夺走了我们捏爆气泡的乐趣。Jaime Fuller在Daily Intelligencer上说:”新包装名为iBubble Wrap,每个气泡之间的空气是互通的,它将取代爆米花型泡泡包装膜. This raises an important question: What, exactly, was ever so satisfying about popping Bubble Wrap, anyway? As it happens, Kathleen M. Dillon, now psychology professor emerita at Western New England College, published a study in the journal Psychological Reports back in the early 1990s investigating this. 这就牵扯出一个重要的议题:为何捏爆Bubble Wrap会这么令人满足呢?西新英格兰学院的心理学教授Kathleen M. Dillon在20世纪90年代早期就曾研究过这个问题,他的研究发表在《心理学报告》上。 A relatively light topic for scientific investigation, to be sure, but in her write-up, Dillon defends her inquiry with some surprising heft, quoting a 1970stome about the calming powers of touch: "In ancient Greece it was customary, and is still in so much of Asia, to carry a smooth-surfaced stone, or amber, or jade, sometimes called a 'fingering piece.' Such a 'worrybead,' as it is also named, by its pleasant feel, serves to produce a calming effect. The telling of beads by religious Catholics seems to produce a similar result." Dillon adds that keeping your hands busy with little projects like needlework is considered relaxing, and suggests that attacking a sheet of Bubble Wrap might work in the same way. |