【推荐2】More than one billion young people risk damaging their hearing through excessive (过度的) use of smartphones and other audio devices (音频设备), the UN warned Tuesday, proposing new safety standards for safe volume levels.

In order to safeguard hearing, the World Health Organization and International Telecommunications Union issued a voluntary international standard for the manufacture and use of audio devices.

Young people are particularly prone to get risky listening habits. Around half of those between the ages of 12 and 35, or 1.1 billion people, are at risk due to “long exposure to loud sounds, including music they listen to through personal audio devices”, the UN health agency said.

Currently, about five percent of the global population, or some 466 million people, including 34 million children, suffer from disabling hearing loss. WHO considers a volume above 85 decibels (分贝) for eight hours or 100 decibels for 15 minutes as unsafe.

WHO is calling for parental as well as automatic volume controls on audio devices to prevent dangerous use.

While some smartphones and other audio devices already offer some of these features, the UN would like to see a uniform standard used to help protect against disabling hearing loss.

“Think of it like driving on a highway, but without a speedometer (速度计) in your car or a speed limit,” Shelly Chadha of the WHO told reporters in Geneva. “What we’ve proposed is that your smartphones come fitted with a speedometer, with a measurement system which tells you how much sound you’re getting and tells you if you are going over the limit.”

【推荐3】More than half of the 1,000 consumers surveyed by Credit Karma said they have impulsively (冲动地) shopped to deal with feelings of stress, anxiety or depression. Twenty-three percent of respondents said they’ve maxed out (刷爆) a credit card in the past year.

As for age, 68 percent youngsters, responded by saying they have experienced it in the past, compared to 53 percent of the middle-aged and only 26 percent of the old.

In regards to genders, 48 percent of men and 31 percent of women who have stress spent said they had purchased alcohol when stressed. Eighty-two percent of women stress spent on clothing compared to 52 percent of men. Women also lead stress spending for jewellery, 42 percent, compared to 22 percent for men with men stress spending more for electronics 44 percent while 30 percent for women.

In fact, shopping to reduce stress can actually help you live a healthier life by making sure that your blood pressure is lowered. Shopping to relieve stress is also called shopping therapy (疗法) as a form of reducing stress.

The survey found that 82 percent had only positive feelings about their purchases and that the positive mood boost that followed those purchases was long-lasting.

However, the side effect of shopping therapy, for many, can start out as a relatively harmless mood booster but could possibly grow into a financial loss, cause conflict, and therefore add a large amount of stress to a person’s life.