5 . ①A group of 41 states and the District of Columbia began a legal case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, insisting that the company knowingly used features on its platforms to cause children to overuse them. The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behavior: Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found.

②David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction in West Hartford, Conn, said the devices tempt users with some powerful approaches. One is “intermittent reinforcement,” which creates the idea that a user could get a reward at any time. But when the reward comes is unpredictable. Adults are easily influenced, be noted, but young people are particularly at risk, because the brain regions that are involved in resisting temptation and reward are not nearly as developed in children and teenagers as in adults. Moreover, the adolescent brain is especially accustomed to social connections, and social media is all a perfect opportunity to connect with other people.

③For many years, the scientific community typically defined addiction in relation to substances, such as drugs, and not behaviors, such as gambling or internet use. That has gradually changed. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official reference for mental health conditions, introduced the idea of internet gaming addiction.

④A subsequent study explored broadening the definition to “internet addiction.” The author suggested further exploring diagnostic criteria and the language, for instance, noting that terms like “problematic use” and even the word “internet” were open to broad interpretation, given the many forms the information and its delivery can take.

⑤Dr. Michael Rich, the director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said he discouraged the use of the word “addiction” because the internet, if used effectively and with limits, was not merely useful but also essential to everyday life.

⑥Greenfield agreed that there clearly are valuable uses for the internet and that the definition of how much is too much can vary. But he said there also were obvious cases where immoderate use disturbs school, sleep and other vital aspects of a healthy life. “Too many young consumers can’t put it down, ” he said.“ The internet, including social media like Meta, are the drugs affecting the mind.”

Skywell

A skywell, or “tian jin”, as it is commonly called, is a typical feature of a traditional home in southern and eastern China. Skywells were designed to reduce temperature in buildings well before air-conditioning existed. When wind blows above a skywell house, it can enter the indoor space through the opening. Because outdoor air is often cooler than indoor air, the incoming wind travels down the walls to the lower stories and creates    1    by replacing warmer indoor air, which rises and leaves through the opening.

The main purpose of a skywell is to allow in light, improve ventilation (通风) and harvest rainwater. In Huizhou, a skywell is small but tall, and the rooms around it    2    out sunlight on hot days, enabling the bottom of the skywell to stay cool. Meanwhile, hot air inside the house can rise and escape through the opening above the skywell.

Architects are now looking towards the    3    behind skywells while designing new buildings to save energy. One example is the National Heavy Vehicle Engineering Technology Research Centre in the eastern Chinese city of Jinan. The 18-storey glass-walled tower block has a giant inner skywell in the middle, which    4    from the fifth to the top floor. The elevators, toilets and meeting rooms are all situated around this channel, which helps improve the lighting and ventilation and    5    the overall energy consumption.

Ancient “green wisdom” such as skywells continue to inspire today’s climate adaptive design and innovations in methods that depend on design and technology to    6    a building without the use of power.

However, there are some    7    for bringing skywells into modern designs. The mechanisms of courtyards facilitating natural lighting, ventilation and rain collection are well known, but applying these methods needs to be    8    . Because traditional skywells had different shapes, sizes and features, which were    9    dependent on their natural surroundings, adding skywells into modern buildings requires designers to be    10    to their project’s context and situation, making it difficult to apply them as a universal solution.

10 . Does a reassuring touch on the back bring you comfort during a tough day? A new study finds, when it comes to touching, people aren’t even ________ about who’s doing it. Researchers in Germany say the touch of a humanoid (人形的) robot makes people ________ and more likely to follow their requests.

Instead of being ________ on other humans, researchers are hoping that one day robots may be able to fulfill the roles of therapists, personal trainers, and even life coaches. Their study follows the widespread increase of touch ________ during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several studies have pointed out how physical distancing and isolation is creating a variety of negative effects that increase feelings of stress, depression, and anxiety.

In this research, 48 students engaged in a conversation with NAO – a programmable research robot. During the course, for some participants, the robot briefly and seemingly randomly ________ the back of the participant’s hand.

This differed from the design of other studies, which have relied on ________ touch. In response to the robot’s touch, most participants smiled and laughed, and none ________. Results show those who were touched were more likely to ________ the robot urging them to show interest in a particular academic course discussed during the conversation. Participants also reported a better ________ state after the robot’s tap on the hand. ________, students who were touched were more likely to give the robot a higher score for physical attractiveness (although these participants still only rated poor NAO a 2.5 out of 5 on average).

“A robot’s non-functional touch ________ to humans,” Laura Hoffmann from Ruhr University and her team write. “Slightly tapping human participants’ hands during a conversation resulted in better feelings and more compliance (依从) to the request of a humanoid robot.”

“It is remarkable that simple and brief tap on the back of participants’ hands showed such an effect. Involving more complex and ________ touching from a robot might increase engagement and compliance.”

As the researchers argue, this small study – one of the first to examine the ________ of robot-initiated touch – suggests that through the use of comforting touches, robot therapists could better ________ patients to engage in healthy activities such as exercise. However, they caution that much about human-robot ________ are complex, with there still more to be learned about the difference between human and robot touch.