【推荐1】In the modern age, social media platforms have emerged as powerful tools for communication, networking, and self-expression. With billions of active users worldwide, these platforms have profoundly influenced the human interaction. Recent psychological studies have delved into understanding the influence of prolonged (长期的) social media usage on individual self-esteem (自尊) and identity formation.

Social media platforms, including Weibo, WeChat Moments, Douyin, and Little Red Book, offer ways for individuals to project curated versions of their lives. While this can serve as a medium of affirmation, it also compares one’s daily life against the specially edited highlights of others, which could potentially lead to feelings of failure and unsatisfactory.

A study conducted among adolescents aged 13-19 showed that extreme social media use correlates with lower self-esteem scores. Participants who spent over five hours daily on these platforms demonstrated significant tendencies towards self-devaluation (自我贬低) and negative self-perception (自体感受). The study believed that the constant exposure of idealized images and lives leads to an involuntary (不自主的) comparison, often placing the individual on the lesser end of the spectrum.

For adolescents, a critical time of identity formation happens during the teenage years. Social media can often blur the lines (模糊界限) between personal identity and digital persona (面貌，形象). A study tracked teenagers for five years and found that heavy social media users often experienced identity confusion. Their digital avatars, formed under societal pressures, sometimes overshadowed their real personalities, leading to internal conflicts and a confusion to real selfhood.

While the negative influence of social media on mental well-being are evident, it’s also essential to highlight its potential benefits. Platforms can help to add a sense of belonging, provide informational support, and serve as outlets for creative expression. Future research could explore potential interventions (介入，干涉) to reduce the negative effects.

In conclusion, while social media offers a huge number of opportunities and ways for expression, it’s important that teenagers approach it with awareness. The psychological landscape it shapes is hard to understand, and understanding its depths requires continued research, empathy (共鸣), and active measures.

【推荐3】Bullying (欺凌)can happen to anyone. A great many children around the world are bullied every year, but there are things that can be done to help.

What is bullying?

Bullying is when someone makes you feel bad of hurts you again and again. Bullying can happen at school, out of school and online. Bullying includes:

·calling people mean (恶意的)names

·laughing at people

·telling lies about people

·taking someone’s things without permission

·not telling someone play in a group

·hitting people

What is cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying includes:

·sending bad messages online

·sharing photos online without permission

·not letting someone be part of an online group

·spreading lies online

What can you do?

If someone is not kind to you, tell an adult that you know and like. For example, talk to a parent or a teacher.

If you get bad messages, don’t reply. You should save them and give them to your teacher, your family, or the police. Ask an adult for help. Don’t share something before you make sure it is true. That will help stop the cyberbullying.

Talk to your parent or teacher or an adult if you see bullying or if you are worried about a friend.

Say sorry if you are not kind to someone. You can write a message or talk to the person.

And always remember: think about how to be kind in the future.

For more information, visit our home page at www.kidsword.com.

【推荐1】When it comes to learning abroad, you may feel uncertain and nervous. Then a supportive host family can be hugely significant in making you feel comfortable in a new country and a new culture. Here are some reasons.

Imagine if you could find a warm greeting upon arrival at your chosen destination. Your homesickness will be cured by the quality time you spend with your host family. Sharing conversations, trying each other’s hobbies or enjoying a movie evening together can create bonds and friendships that last a lifetime.

While you live with a local family, you can make the most out of everyday conversations in a relaxing environment, which will encourage you to learn new words in new ways that you cannot always pick up in the classroom. You will make much faster progress in your learning as you’ll be putting your skills to use outside the classroom as well as with native speakers.

While you live with your host family, you will eat the local cuisine and get to know the true character of the local food culture. Although each family does it differently, this will give you invaluable insights into local life. You may even learn some delicious family recipes and should also share yours.

While exploring unknown pathways can be exciting, sometimes you just have to be somewhere on time. Living with a host family will teach you how to travel like a local and navigate the London Underground like a pro (老手) and read a train schedule with so much confidence that a native speaker asks you for direction.

Daily life with your host family will teach you so much about the culture and traditions of the country you are living in. It will also teach you to embrace cultural differences. Not only will you return home with new language skills, but you will hopefully also come home with a second family abroad—a true home away from home.

【推荐2】Recent experiments exposed four common disease-causing bacteria to a Mars-like environment with its lack of water, insufficient atmospheric pressure, deadly radiation and poisonous salts. The bacteria remained alive for various periods of time, researchers report in the January Astrobiology.

In 2020, a team of scientists found that several bacterial species that live on or inside the human body were able to grow in a medium like the nutrient-poor conditions. That made some of the researchers wonder how such bugs would hold up under the unforgiving environment of Mass. So several members of that team, along with microbiologist Tommaso Zaccaria, did the experiment about four microbes (微生物), which usually live harmlessly on or in us but can lend to diseases when stressed.

“At the beginning, we thought that the environment on Mars would have a harmful effect on the cells so it would limit their growth.” says Zaccaria, a microbiologist in Cologne. “But instead, we saw that it was the opposite.”

He and his colleagues are now trying to figure out just how the microbes held on. Perhaps on Mars, the bacteria managed to find small areas with enough water, nutrients and protection from the deadly UV radiation. Zeccaria says. The researchers are also interested in determining how the human body will respond to bugs that have gone through such hard conditions.

The results suggest that human missions to Mars should bring plenty of different antibiotics (抗生素) to deal with disease-causing bacteria surviving on the Martian surface. And since we don’t want to accidentally mistake a terrestrial (地球上的) bug for a native Martian one while searching for life on Mars, Zaccaria also recommends that areas of the Red Planet be set aside like national parks, where humans would send only robotic vehicles and not our bacteria-carrying bodies.

Waters, a scientist who was not involved in the experiments, points out that human intelligence will hopefully find ways to solve such problems, which shouldn’t scare us away from sending people beyond our planet.

【推荐2】University of Southern California (USC) Online Pre-College Program

Admission decisions are made on a rolling basis. Applicants who submit a completed application can expect an admission decision within 5 – 7 business days.

·Include basic contact information from you and your parent(s) or guardian.

·Tell us why you want to take the course and a little about yourself through a short-answer essay.

·Share a piece of writing, video or social media content that reveals something about yourself (optional).

·Submit the $35 application fee.

·Students must be at least 14 years old or older.

Application fees and enrollment deposits are nonrefundable. All course cancellations requests must be made in writing to precollegeonline@usc.edu. Any tuition paid to the university will be refunded, not including fees and deposits, if requested by the application deadline for the related course.

The university will not refund tuition for Online Pre-College Exploration courses for students who are removed from the program due to breaking our Letter of Understanding for Online Participation and our Student Code of Conduct.

USC Pre-College Program is proud to honor full scholarships for our Online Exploration Courses to students enrolled in the summer session of USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative (NAI). Qualified students who are enrolled in grades 9 – 12 can send an email for application and enrollment instructions to precollegeonline@usc.edu.