【推荐1】A generation ago young people longed to become lawyers and doctors. Now they desire to be the next Oscar winner or famous pop star. But one university psychologist has pointed out that this is damaging our self-image and sense of self-worth. Over recent years people around the world have been suffering from an increasing fear of their own “insignificance”, according to Dr. Strenger of Tel Aviv University.

He began a project on the phenomenon 10 years ago, after noticing an increase of fear in his own patients. His findings note hundreds of research projects that have recorded an unprecedented (前所未有) increase in levels of anxiety and depression. By using a wide-ranging framework Dr. Strenger thinks he has given the accurate cause. “The impact of the global entertainment network on the individual is to blame,” he said. “A new species—global man—is born and we are defined by our close connection to the global entertainment network, which has turned ranking and evaluating people according to wealth and fame into an obsession (狂热).”

As humans we naturally measure ourselves by those around us, but now we live in a “global village” where we are comparing ourselves with the most “significant” people in the world - and finding ourselves not good enough. Today, even high achievers constantly fear that they are insignificant when they compare themselves to success stories in the media. “This creates highly unstable personality and an unstable society,” Dr. Strenger said.

Dr. Strenger says people should stop measuring their achievement through the cultural fantasies of rich and famous people. The remedy (治疗方法) is a process that he calls “active self-acceptance” through a continuing search for self-knowledge through life. The fear of insignificance can only be overcome through strong individual and cultural identity over and above measurable achievement. “People should invest time and thought in their personal growth from different aspects in the same way they invest in medical studies and law school,” Dr. Strenger advises.

【推荐2】TV time can cause a loss to your child's nutrition. Why? Many kids spend a great amount of time in front of the television.     1     Some of the foods shown in commercials don’t do them any good when it comes to feeding their growing brains and bodies. Many are high in fat, sugar, sodium and/or calories and they often lack vitamins, minerals and fiber.

How can you control TV attractions? Registered dietitian Karen Ansel, MS, RD, offers these tips:

Watch commercials with your kids.

Ask them what they think of the foods being shown and what might be some tasty (more healthful) ones. When kids are making choices, “health” and “nutrition” are not big motivators.     2     Some foods will help them run faster, jump higher, be stronger, etc.

Help your kids learn more about their foods.

    3     Help them “see what's inside” an advertised food they want to try. It’s a great way to discuss the nutritional value of a food.

    4    

And have them jump in to help out. Kids are naturally curious. Take advantage of their desire for discovery to tell them the amazing flavors, shapes and colors of healthful foods.

Set a few limits to TV time.

TV can become the toleration activity for kids—something easy to do for long periods of time.     5     Instead of simply telling kids to turn off the TV, have a few fun choices to take its place, ideally ones that get kids up and active.

【推荐1】Psychological science is full of interesting topics, many of which tell a coherent picture of human nature, but some of which create seemingly contradictory stories. A case in point is the tricky and misunderstood intersection between strength-based science and the research on narcissism (自恋).

There is now convincing evidence to show that narcissism is on the rise, especially in our youth. Some researchers have gone so far as to say that it is occurring in epidemic proportions, with about 25% of young people showing symptoms of narcissism. The inflated ego of Generation Me is reflected in reality TV, celebrity worship, out-of-control consumerism, materialism...perhaps even a new type of president.

We are correct to be concerned about this phenomenon but our fear that all kids are potential narcissists has caused an unhelpful counter-reaction to approaches that seek to make our children and teens feel good about themselves.

In my own research on strength-based parenting it is common for people to wrongly label this approach as a recipe for self-entitlement. Their argument seems to be that a child who knows their strengths will automatically view themselves as better than everyone else. It is argued that the self-assurance that comes with identifying and using their positive qualities will make a child arrogant, selfish and uncaring. Genuine confidence about one’s strengths is categorized as over-confidence; desirable self-knowledge is branded as excessive self-admiration.

Why does this occur? It’s partly because more is known about narcissism than strengths. While strengths psychology has largely stayed within the limit of academic journals or has been applied only within certain contexts such as the workplace, research on narcissism has made its way into the mass media and into our collective conscious. The New York Times noted that narcissism is a favored “go-to” topic and that people everywhere are diagnosing others with it.

The fear that a strength-based approach will cause narcissism also occurs because we unwittingly fall prey to binary (非此即彼的) thinking. We mistakenly believe that one cannot be both confident and humble. We focus on Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian rather than Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. There’s no way that Gandhi and Mother Teresa could have achieved what they did without confidence in their strengths, and yet they are both pillars of humility and selflessness.

When we assume that strength-focus is the same as a self-focus, we fail to entertain the idea that people who know their strengths are, actually, more likely to be pro-social and focus on helping others.

It’s tempting to conclude that every young person is at risk of becoming a narcissist but I’d like to stand up for the thousands of young kids I have worked with who are caring, thoughtful and humble — even when they use their strengths.

【推荐2】One in four children and young people could have problematic smart-phone use, according to research that also suggests such behaviour is associated with poorer mental health.

The amount of time children and teens spend using their devices has become an issue of growing concern, but experts say there is still little evidence as to whether spending time on screens is harmful in itself.

The experts behind the latest study said they wanted to look beyond the time young people were spending on smart-phones and instead explore the type of relationship they had with smart-phones.

The results suggest more than 23% of young people have an abnormal relationship with their smart-phones, and that this appears to be associated with poorer mental health-although the research cannot say whether phone use is driving such problems.

“It seems like only a minority of teenagers and young people from various different countries are self-reporting a pattern of behaviour that we recognise from other addictions,” said Dr Nicola Kalk of King’s College London, co-author of the study. “The quality of the evidence is poor, but it is enough to warrant (保证) further investigation.”

Writing in the journal BMC Psychiatry, the team reported how they looked at data from 41 studies involving a total of almost 42,000 participants across Europe, Asia and America, mainly in their teens or early 20s.

These studies used questionnaires to probe the prevalence (普遍) of problematic smart-phone use-behaviours such as being anxious when the device is not available or neglecting other activities to spend time on the smart-phone.

Taken together, the team said on average these studies suggested as many as one in four children and young people had problematic smart-phone use.

Among the studies that probed mental health, the results suggested people with problematic smart-phone use were also more likely to have depression-for which the odds (可能性) were more than three times worse-anxiety, feelings of stress and poor sleep as well as poorer educational attainment.

While the team said it was too soon to call problematic smart-phone usage an addiction, they noted that it appeared to be linked to similar patterns of behaviour and emotion.

Kalk said further studies were needed to explore if these behaviours were hard to break, or cause harm-other key features of an addiction.

The authors argued that the availability and pervasiveness of smart-phones in everyday life meant problematic use of the devices posed a different and much bigger public health problem than substances of abuse or internet gaming.

Kalk said the team were now looking at whether smart-phones were just delivering addictive content, or whether there was something inherently addictive about using such devices.

Dr Amy Orben, an expert in screen time at the University of Cambridge, raised concerns, noting that the definition of problematic internet use varied considerably across studies, and the measures used were questioned.

She said studies finding little signs of problematic internet use might have been overlooked, while the research could not say whether problematic smart-phone use caused poorer mental health.

Prof Russell Viner, President of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, said that parents were navigating unchartered water when it came to technology.

“One of the most critical things for parents to consider is whether screen time is having a harmful impact on other activities like school, relationships or other interests. This study suggests that this is the case for a significant minority of children and young people,” he said.

Viner said in these cases parents should calmly install age-appropriate boundaries on smart-phone use, and ask questions about whether their children were experiencing other problems.

“While screen time is a new problem, part of the solution is tried and tested-open and regular conversations based on respect and trust,” he said.