Are you a social media addict? Are you always checking your smartphone to see how many ‘likes’ you’ve received for your latest post?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We check our phones an average of 150 times a day, and around 30% of the total time spent online is dedicated to social media.     1     This is something particularly afflicting(折磨) young adults, according to a study from the University   of Pittsburgh.     2    . In tests, those people who checked social media frequently were 2.7 times more likely to be depressed compared to those who spent most of their time generally surfing the internet, who had just 1.7 times the risk. The study found that exposure to “highly idealised representations of peers on social media elicits feelings of envy and the distorted belief that others lead happier, more successful lives.”

Some of us certainly feel sad when we’re ignored on social media sites, or when we see someone else having a better time than us.     3    . Clinical psychologist, Abigael San, recently told the BBC that, “It’s a real issue, and it’s been getting significantly worse over the last 5-6 years. You can get so hooked that it takes you away from your real relationships.” However, Abigael does admit that social media is more likely to worsen pre-existing issues than directly cause them.

    4     It found that those with higher levels of emotional investment in social media, and who use it at night, were more likely to feel depressed and anxious.

Despite these warning signs, why do some of us continue to keep clicking? Well, I suppose we all want to be liked and we don’t want to miss out on a conversation that’s taking place online.

But we need to know when to switch off our virtual online world and connect with the real world instead.

【推荐1】A homeless man is fast becoming an Internet sensation (引起轰动的人) with his video blog of life on the street of Moscow, it’s reported. Yevgeny Yakut moved to the Russian capital, hoping to live better, but soon found himself one of the many homeless people in the city known for its housing shortage and high cost of living. But he thinks he has found a way out. “I was warming myself in a railway station when I saw a television report on bloggers earning money by making advertisements,” he tells the TV channel Moscow 360. A young passer-by got chatting to him about the idea, and agreed to be Mr. Yakut’s cameraman, using a smart phone to record his friend’s humorous stories of daily struggle to “find food, a place to sleep, and keep out of the way of the police”. So viewers could see how he lives in central Moscow without a home.

They upload the regular videos to YouTube, where Mr Yakut is hoping to attract enough subscribers (订阅者) to interest advertisers in his channel. So far, the pair have attracted more than 18,000 subscribers---around half of those since Russian media began reporting his story and more than 450,000 video views.

In one video Mr Yakut points out free shuttle bus (班车) serves that he, and others in his position, can use to get around. He also shows viewers the best place he has found to wash and shave---a modern shopping centre bathroom---and how to make use of the items other Muscovites have abandoned in the city’s bins.

The popularity of the pair’s You Tube channel has impressed video-marketer Kirill Kalashnikov, who tells Moscow 360 that with some professional help, “this could be turned into a million subscribers within a year”. In the meantime, Mr Yakut says supporters can make donations through a Moscow drain pipe, where he hides his dollars in a deposit box made from a soft-drink bottle.

【推荐3】Marcelo Toledo usually creates sculptures and jewelry out of metal. Now the Argentine artist is working with a new material: waste from the COVID-19 pandemic, such as masks, to create an exhibition exploring the painful impact of the virus.

Toledo, who has made jewelry for the musical “Evita” on Broadway and unique pieces for many famous people, was among the first in Argentina to be infected with COVID-19, which left him hospitalized for eight days. The experience had a great effect on his life and led to a series of artworks, including a 14-meter mask with the Argentine flag that he placed on the famous obelisk (方尖纪念碑) in Buenos Aires to raise awareness about organ donation during the pandemic.

For his new exhibition, the “Museum of the After”, Toledo is collecting recycled waste from the COVID-19 sent by hospitals, laboratories and strangers, including old medical parts and newspapers about the pandemic.

“I am excited to be able to turn pain into beauty and this exhibition is just recording everything that is happening to us as a society,” Toledo said. The artworks, which will go on show from September in a public space in downtown Buenos Aires, will all be made from waste materials or garbage that people send him. “It is the first time that I have done an exhibition in which I do not have to buy any of the elements,” he said.

In the exhibition, there will be a real ship that will symbolically cross a “storm” and recycling islands to raise awareness about the importance of caring for the environment. “The exhibition will tell the story of this ship that went sailing and was stranded (搁浅) by a storm, which is a great metaphor for what is happening to us. This pandemic is a great global storm,” Toledo said.

As with the huge mask, which was in countries such as the United States and Japan, the artist dreams of replicating (复制) the new exhibition in other cities around the world.

【推荐1】Have you ever wondered how other people start their day? Morning routines are usually private, witnessed only by family members if they’re awake, and yet these routines are very important for setting a productive tone for the rest of the day. Especially when mornings are cold and dark, there is something fascinating about discovering how others get out of bed each day.

This is the intriguing concept behind a website called My Morning Routine (MMR). Founded in 2012 by Michael Xander and Benjamin Spall, MMR has interviewed more than 218 people about their early-morning habits, always asking the same basic set of questions. Every Wednesday an inspiring routine story is published online.

MMR has a statistics page that was started after 133 morning routine interviews were completed. It’s now updated every week. The statistics illustrate the common denominators across all interviews. Here are some of the key findings.

Coffee is king among the participants, with water coming in a far-off second as their favorite drink in the morning, and nearly everybody hates email. Do you answer email first in the morning or leave it until later in the day? Of all the questions they ask the participants, this is the one that never fails to stir up an emotive response. So why do we read about other people’s morning routines? Well, first of all, it’s fun. Perhaps your first impression is like mine—skeptical that such a thing how could possibly be interesting. It is, quite literally, catching a glimpse of a part of people’s lives we don’t normally see.

Second, I think many people harbor a secret desire to improve their morning routines, to get better at starting the day off right. The idea behind MMR is to influence readers to make adjustments to their own routines and to take bits and pieces of other’ successful routines and incorporate them into their own.

【推荐2】I first met Paul Newman in 1968, when George Roy Hill, the director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, introduced us in New York City. When the studio didn't want me for the film-it wanted somebody as well-known as Paul-he stood for me. I don't know how many people would have done that; they would have listened to their agents or the studio powers.

The friendship that grew out of the experience of making that film and The Sting four years later had its root in the fact that although there was an age difference, we both came from a tradition of theater and live TV. We were respectful of craft (技艺) and focused on digging into the characters we were going to play. Both of us had the qualities and virtues that are typical of American actors: humorous, aggressive, and making fun of each other-but always with an underlying affection. Those were also at the core (核心) of our relationship off the screen.

We shared the belief that if you're fortunate enough to have success, you should put something back-he with his Newman's Own food and his Hole in the Wall camps for kids who are seriously ill, and me with Sundance and the institute and the festival. Paul and I didn't see each other all that regularly, but sharing that brought us together. We supported each other financially and by showing up at events.

I last saw him a few months ago. He'd been in and out of the hospital. He and I both knew what the deal was, and we didn't talk about it. Ours was a relationship that didn't need a lot of words.

【推荐3】How many times have we expressed how rude young people are for texting while having a conversation?They try to fix eyes on their smartphone screen while nodding.What goes through your mind is “how rude they are!”

Have we forgotten some of the old school manners that our parents, grandparents and teachers taught us manners that have nothing to do with a mobile device or iPad,but everything to do with long-forgotten Golden Rules we were raised with?

When I was growing up,there was etiquette to coughing.When coughing,we were told to turn our head away and block off our mouth.This might sound amusing to many young people．But if we didn't follow these etiquettes，we would get a quick reminder to the back of our head When we were given something,and forgot to say “thank you”，elders would seriously remind us,“aren’t you forgetting to say something”，which was immediately followed by a “thank you”．

Maybe technology has affected our brains so much that we can never go back to those golden days we like.It seems as if we have thrown out manners and etiquette with the bathwater.Simple etiquette is missing in society.A thank-you note for a gift you have received all fall into the same box of manners.People are just cold these days because we are on the run every day in the world.

In the work environment have you ever come across a sign:“Your mother doesn’t work here,clean up by yourself”?We often hear people say, the younger generation have no manners.I think many people have lost their manners.We’ve allowed bad manners to go unchecked.We simply stand bad behavior．

In a world of more good manners,more “thank you” or “please” exchanged， our younger generation will have an improved quality of life．

【推荐1】A new study, conducted by British company Mindlab International, has found that listening to music at work increases accuracy and speed, The Telegraph reported. Perhaps, some parents disagree with this idea, saying, "Switch off the music and concentrate!" Well, if that's the case with your parents, you might now be able to convince them that you have science on your side.

The company gave 26 participants a series of different tasks for five days in a row, including spell checking, mathematical word problems, data entry, and abstract reasoning. The participants completed these tasks while listening to music or no music at all.

The results showed that while music was playing, 88% of participants produced their most accurate test results and 81% completed their fastest work. David Lewis, chairman of Mindlab International, told The Telegraph, "Music is a very powerful management tool if you want to increase not only the efficiency of your workforce but also their emotional state... they are going to become more positive about the work."

However, you may have a list of your favorite songs, but not all kinds of music match all homework. For maths or other subjects involving numbers or attention to detail, you should listen to classical music, the study found. In the study, pop music enabled participants to complete their tasks 58% faster than when listening to no music at all. If you are reviewing your English writing, pop music is the best choice, as it is the best kind for spell checking. It cut mistakes by 14%, compared to listening to no music. After finishing your homework, do you often take time to check your answers? Maybe, some dance music is suitable for you.

【推荐2】According to Nielsen, the average number of mobile phone calls we make is dropping every year, after hitting a peak in 2007. And our calls are getting shorter: In 2005 they averaged three minutes in length;   now they’re almost half that.

We are moving, in other words, toward a fascinating cultural transition: the death of the telephone call. This shift is particularly plain among the young. Some college students I know go days without talking into their smartphones at all.

This generation doesn’t make phone calls, because everyone is in constant, lightweight contact in so many other ways: texting, chatting, and social-network messaging. And we don’t just have more options than we used to. We have better ones: These new forms of communication have exposed the fact that the voice call is badly designed. It deserves to die. Consider: If I suddenly decide I want to dial you up, I have no way of knowing whether you’re busy, and you have no idea why I’m calling.

We have to open Schrodinger’s box every time, having a conversation to figure out whether it’s OK to have a conversation. Plus, voice calls are emotionally high-bandwidth, which is why it’s so weirdly exhausting to be interrupted by one. (We apparently find voicemail even more torturous: Studies show that more than a fifth of all voice messages are never listened to.)

The telephone, in other words, doesn’t provide any information about status, so we are constantly interrupting one another. The other tools at our disposal are more polite. Instant messaging lets us detect whether our friends are busy without our annoying them, and texting lets us ping one another but not at the same time. (Plus, we can spend more time thinking about what we want to say.) Despite the hue and cry about becoming an “always on” society, we’re actually moving away from the demand that everyone should be available immediately.

We’ll still make fewer phone calls, as most of our former phone time will migrate to other media. But the calls we do make will be longer, reserved for the sort of deep discussion that the medium does best.

As video chatting becomes more common, enabled by the new iPhone and other devices, we might see the growth of persistent telepresence, leaving video-chat open all day so we can speak to a spouse or colleague spontaneously. Or, to put it another way, we’ll call less but talk more.

【推荐3】A ROBOT companion for older people aims to promote activity and deal with loneliness by urging them to take part in digital and physical activities.

The ElliQ robot, made by Israel-based start-up Intuition Robotics, will be published at the Design Museum in London this week. ElliQ is a small desktop device that consists of a domed (拱形的) “body” and a separate detachable (可拆卸的) screen.

Created in collaboration with Swiss designer Yves Behar, the robot is able to encourage a degree of social engagement. Similar to home assistants like the Amazon Echo, people can simply talk to it, and there are visual clues that could be particularly helpful for those with hearing difficulties.

A key purpose of ElliQ is to act as an easy platform to access existing services such as social media, and messaging programs. For example, the device could alert the users that their grandchild has posted a new photo on Facebook, show it to them on the screen.

ElliQ can recommend activities voluntarily. It might ask if you’re interested in watching a video, for instance, or suggest a walk. It can also act as reminder to take medication.

Having a robot constantly offer suggestions could obviously get annoying, so the device uses machine learning to tailor these suggestions to individual preferences. If a suggestion is met with a positive response once, ElliQ might try it again. If not, it might change for a different tack.