US sex education is decades behind other countries. Right now, it isn’t even mandatory in every state. Add to that the awkwardness people feel about sex and bodies in general, top it with the idea of having to have these discussions in public, and what you get is a system that’s devolved into a total mess.
美国性教育落后其他国家几十年,现在甚至都没有在所有州普及。一般在提及性和身体时人们会感觉尴尬,要是再公开讨论,最终只能一团糟。

It’s no wonder 84 percent of teens look for health information online. The problem there is that a lot of the answers they come across — about everything from STIs to puberty to pregnancy to sexual orientation — are often just plain wrong.
难怪84%的青少年要在网上搜索健康信息,但问题是他们找到的大多数关于性病、青春期、怀孕和性取向等的答案通常都是完全错误的。

Naturally, tech wants to find a solution.
技术人员自然是想要找到解决方法。

That’s how Planned Parenthood created Roo, a sex ed chatbot that encourages teenagers to ask all of their potentially uncomfortable sex-related without ever revealing their identity.
所以美国计划生育协会开发了Roo,这是一款性教育聊天机器人,鼓励青少年去问所有让他们内心感觉不舒服的与性有关的问题,还不会泄露他们的身份。

To build Roo, Ambreen Molitor, senior director of the Digital Product Lab at Planned Parenthood, first interviewed Brooklyn high school students about their online habits and what they would want out of a bot that talked to them about everything from safe sex to coming out. Her team discovered that above all, “teens really wanted to be anonymous.”
美国计划生育协会数码产品实验室高级主管Ambreen Molitor为了开发Roo,首先调查了布鲁克林高中生的上网习惯,以及他们在和机器人程序聊天时想获得什么信息,包括安全性行为、出柜等所有问题。她的团队发现最重要的问题是“青少年真的希望匿名”。

“Sometimes they didn’t feel comfortable talking to the community around them or in the sex ed classrooms. But also online, because more often than not, Gen Z’s teens in general are very aware that when you’re searching on Google, you’re being cookie’d. They’re very cognizant of what they type into the browser or the search query — which is really unique.”
“有时和周围的人或在性教育课上聊天他们会感觉不舒服,上网也一样,大多数时候Z世代(1995-2009年间出生的人)的青少年普遍认为在谷歌上搜索信息就会被跟踪记录,他们非常注意自己在浏览器或搜索栏中输入的内容,这一情况真的很独特。”

 

翻译:菲菲