Billboards are everywhere. Indoors, advertising is in magazines and newspapers, on television, and even popping up on computer screens. Outdoors, advertising means billboards. They’re in train stations and on the sides of buildings. They’re along highways in the countryside. Billboards were once large painted signs that urged consumers to buy anything from fried chicken to dish soap. Nowadays, billboards are high-tech devices that advertise the products of the modern world, from cellular phone service to perfume.

Billboards have changed along with technology. Originally painted directly onto wooden boards or the sides of buildings, billboards were first improved by attaching large printed strips to a structure to form an advertiser^ message. Later, mechanical billboards were developed which could display three different images. As one image changed to the next, the movement caught the eye of anyone passing by. More recently, electronic technology has produced back-lit billboards, which shine a light through an image printed on a sheet of plastic, and digital billboards that can display huge images similar to those on a television screen.

The latest trend in billboards is interactivity. In Belgium, a billboard that looked like a pinball machine had people on the street using text messaging to answer a question the billboard sent to their cell phones. If they answered correctly, they had a chance to win a new car. In Japan, some billboards feature QR (“Quick Response”）codes, a newer version of bar codes, which can be read by specially programmed camera cell phones. When a person takes a picture of a billboard with a QR code, the advertiser’s website appears on their phone. A billboard in New York’s Times Square allows people on the street to play a video game using their cell phones, and a huge digital sign in London’s Piccadilly Circus responds when someone waves at it and displays different images depending on the weather.

One of the most firmly established idea of manliness is that a real man doesn’t cry. Although he might cry a bit at a funeral, he is expected to quickly regain control. Crying openly is for girls. One study found that women cry significantly more than men do—five times as often, on average, and almost twice as long per period.

Historically, however, men usually cried, and no one saw it as shameful. For example, in the Middle Ages, knights cried only because they missed their girlfriends. In The Knight of the Cart, no less a hero than Lancelot weeps at a brief separation from Guinevere. There’s no mention of the men in these stories trying to hold back or hide their tears. They cry in a crowded hall with their heads held high. Nor do their companions make fun of this public crying; it’s universally regarded as an admirable expression of feeling.

So where did all the male tears go? The most obvious possibility is that this is the result of changes as we moved from an agricultural society to one that was urban and industrial. In the Middle Ages, most people spent their lives among those they had known since birth. If men cried, they did so with people who would sympathize. But from the 18^th to 20^th centuries, the population became increasingly urbanize, and people were living in the midst of thousands of strangers. Furthermore, changes in the economy required men to work together in factories and offices where expressions of feelings and even personal conversations were discouraged as time wasting.

Yet human beings weren’t designed to hide their feelings, and there’s reason to believe that restraining tears can be harmful to your well-being. Research from the 1980s has suggested a relationship between stress-related illnesses and not enough crying. Crying is also, somewhat related with happiness and wealth. Countries where people cry the most tend to be richer and more confident.

Reading literature is a common experience, but it is by no means a simple experience. Literature may seem a simple matter of fact when one thinks of it as being black marks on white pages; but as soon as the reader recognizes the marks as words—as phrases, sentences, and paragraphs—he has begun to leave the world of the simple experience of the “real” object, the printed page, and has begun to move in the world of abstractions. The black marks are soon seen as symbols of other things, to “stand for” objects, processes and situations.

A reader’s experience with a book is no difference in its nature than his experience with other objects in life. In life, objects appear to us and we have sensations and impressions of them as they impact on our sensory organs; we adjust to the objects with every confidence that they are real. Theseus (忒修斯, 传说中的雅典国王), in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, speaks of the errors we make in judging: “In the night, imagining some fear, how easy is a bush supposed a bear!”

As in life, the magic of imagination in literature creates vivid images that may develop in the reader a tendency to accept the images as physical reality, and what was at first imagined becomes at last directly sensed. John Keats went so far as to express a preference for the imagined when he said, “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter...”

Perhaps Keats was an uncommon reader. Generally, however, most of us undervalue the power of literature to affect us directly. Indeed, the very world of reality in which we all live our daily lives is filled with imagined experience. While reading, we should take the printed page seriously as an opportunity to enjoy a significant experience. Literature, in that case, provides a memorable experience.

Research suggests that at least 64% of people now spend up to four hours daily of spare time in front of a screen. Just as a TV watching has been linked to higher chances of being fat and getting all kinds of diseases, this extra sedentary(久坐不动) time is bad news for our health.     11    

1. Choose outdoor activities over technology

When you’re at home, make it a rule that you can’t be online if the sun is shining.     12     Then, after taking these healthy physical activity, you can pull out your phone or take a seat at the computer. This rule should be fit for everyone in your family.

2. Limit social media use

According to some experts, the effect of technology on human relationships is worrying as technology has become a substitute for face-to-face human relationships. And social networks have changed computer and mobile use for people of all ages.     13     Avoid aimless browsing(浏览) and give your time online a purpose: research holidays or catch up on the news of the day. Then log off.

3.     14    

Challenge yourself to read at least 30 pages of a great book before you check your computer or mobile phone. Pick the right reading material and you’ll soon find you’ve discovered an enjoyable pastime.

4. Create projects for yourself

It’s amazing how much you can achieve when you’re not glued to(长时间盯着) a screen.     15     Some suggestions are organizing kitchen cupboards, cleaning your bedroom. Then try to do one each evening.