It was estimated that as of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion active Internet users globally,
2 . While the benefits of Zoom and other videoconferencing tools made them absolutely essential in the pandemic (疫情), the research suggests that heavy reliance on the technology comes at a cost to creative thinking.
Brucks at Columbia University and her team started their investigation when managers reported having trouble innovating with remote workers. Brucks doubted whether videoconferencing was a factor, suspecting that difficulties coordinating (协调) large, global teams online might be to blame instead.
To find out, the researchers analysed ideas for new products generated by 1,490 engineers for a multinational company. The engineers, who were in Finland, Hungary, India, Israel and Portugal, were randomly paired up and given an hour or so to brainstorm products either in person or over videoconferencing. They then selected their best idea.
Writing in Nature, the researchers report that the engineers produced more ideas, and more innovative ideas, when working face to face. “They are not only generating a larger number of creative ideas, but their best idea is better,” Brucks said. Virtual teams were just as good at selecting the best ideas from a bunch as those that met in person.
“Visual focus is a huge component of cognitive (认知) focus. When you’re focused on the screen and ignoring the rest of the environment, that affects how you approach the task,” said Brucks. “It’s uniquely bad for creativity because it’s inhibiting broader exploration.”
Brucks said the impact on the real world “could be huge”, leading to a division of labour between face-to-face and virtual meetings that could “permanently reshape the office and work schedules”. But she urged businesses to be cautious, because if virtual meetings are cheaper than in-person ones, they may still be more cost-effective.
Asked for tips, Brucks said people could save more creative tasks for in-person meetings, or turn off their camera when coming up with ideas. “I think it unlocks more creative thinking,” she said.
1. Why did Brucks conduct the research?| A．To prove her assumption. | B．To clarify a new concept. | C．To make a comparison. | D．To explain a rule. |
| A．Face-to-face gatherings promote cross-culture ties. | B．Workers think less creatively in virtual meetings. |
| C．Individual work generates more innovative ideas. | D．Videoconferencing has an irreplaceable role. |
| A．Encouraging. | B．Requiring. | C．Beginning. | D．Preventing. |
| A．They should be used accordingly. | B．They’ll make office workers divided. |
| C．They’ll give way to in-person meetings. | D．They help businesses run more efficiently. |
3 . Ashlee Thomas' struggles are just one example of Instagram's potential"toxic"effect on teen girls,as highlighted in he congressional(国会的) testimony(证词)of Frances Haugen on Friday.
"I believe Facebook's products harm children,encourage division and weaken our democracy, said Haugen, a 37-year-old former Facebook product manager who worked on civic integrity issues at the company.
Facebook's own internal research,cited by Haugen,showed"13.5%of teen girls on Instagram Instagram is owned by Facebook) say the platform makes thoughts of 'Suicide and Self Injury worse"and 17% say the platform makes" Eating Issues"such as anorexia(厌食症)worse.
Its research also claimed Facebook's platforms"make body image issues worse for l in 3 teen girls."
"The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their profits before people,"Haugen said during her opening remarks."Congressional action is needed. They wont solve this crisis without your help."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the platform he built to defend the company against Haugen's allegations(指控),saying in a 1,300-word statement that the tech giant's research on its impact on children was being misrepresented.
"We care deeply about issues like safety, well-being and mental health,"Zuckerberg wrote.
He added, "Many of the claims don't make any sense.If we wanted to ignore research, why would we create an industry-leading research program to understand these important issues in the first place?"
In a statement, Facebook doubted the interpretation(解释) of the research and insisted th percentages are much lower.The company has also said it welcomes regulation.
Still, those familiar with the workings of the tech world say it will take much more to save teens.
"Their business model's putting kids into these kinds of loops of engagement,"said Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology."And that's what I’m really worried about...that there isn't some quick fix to this thing.It’s the intrinsic((固有的)nature of the product."
1. What issue does this article mainly talk about?| A．Facebook's development problems. |
| B．Children's poor eating habits. |
| C．Facebook's possible harm on its users. |
| D．Instagram's business model. |
| A．poisonous | B．Immediate |
| C．beneficial | D．dramatic |
| A．Whether there is a Facebook internal research. |
| B．Whether the result of the internal research is true. |
| C．Whether Facebook accepts regulation. |
| D．Whether Facebook cares about its users. |
A． |
B． |
C． |
D． |
要点如下：1.网络新闻媒体的现状；
2.网络新闻媒体的优缺点；
3.网络新闻媒体的未来发展趋势。
Dear Doctor Li,
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Yours,
Li Hua
5 . A couple of years ago Brian Arthur, an academic of the Palo Alto Research Centre, made a surprising prediction. In the next two to three decades, Western digital networks would end up performing functions equal to the size of the “real” US economy. Or, to put it another way, if you looked at all the work being done by electronic supply chains, robots, communications systems—and the bar code—then the digital economy would “exceed the physical economy in size”, Arthur wrote, on the basis of productivity and output calculations.
It sounds impressive. But it also raises a crucial question: as those digital networks increase in size, what are flesh-and-blood workers going to do in this future world? Simon Head, an academic who teaches at the University of Oxford and New York University, joined in this debate with a book entitled Mindless: Why Smarter Machines Are Making Dumber Humans.
As the subtitle suggests, Head is extremely pessimistic. He thinks the digital networks keep replacing jobs that used to be performed by the middle classes, throwing them out of work or into thankless, dull ones, as a few groups of skilled managers (or business owners) get wealthier. As a result, income inequality keeps growing and digital systems increasingly influence what we all do, overriding human common sense. This can be seen in the financial sector, Head argues, pointing out that digitization has overtaken many manufacturing companies.
But the real foretaste of the future—and digital hell—is with companies such as Walmart and Amazon, he claims. While the word “Amazon” tends to bring delight to consumers, given its wonderfully efficient shopping experience, people working inside the company’s warehouses live in a world of electronic observation, low wages and physically demanding work. And, of course, the rise of Amazon has also been deeply painful for many independent retailers, suppliers and writers.
On one level, Head’s anger is nothing new. Academics have been writing about the digitization revolution for some time. But what is perhaps most interesting of all about Head’s view is that while he writes from an annoyed viewpoint, even he cannot find any answers.
Unlike those early Luddites who simply destroyed 19th-century weaving machines, Head does not want to ban bar codes. Instead, he wants “higher-paying, higher-skilled jobs, with the digital networks used to supplement (增补) rather than replace employees’ expert knowledge or skill” in a new corporate culture where workers are treated with respect (or at least more attention than those robots). But while he mentions a few “case histories where alternative, employee-friendly cultures have taken root”, he also admits “these are not easily copied elsewhere”.
Thus, he admires “Germany’s culture of codetermination and labour-management partnership”, for example, or “the John Lewis Partnership in the United Kingdom, the employee-owned and the best high-quality retail chain in the country” or “exceptional US companies like Lincoln Electric”. But he also warns that “it would be delusional (妄想的) to think that, in the United States, the area of these alternative work cultures will expand naturally”. The Amazon example is just too strong.
The real problem of invisible digitization is exactly that: the revolution is unseen. Thus, while “the progressive response to the cruelty of 19th-century capitalism was fueled by a growing awareness of what was going on behind factory walls, digital networks are invisible”.
If you want to be cheerful, it is possible to hope that this howl of anger is simply a passing phrase. When millions of people lost their agricultural jobs in earlier centuries, nobody foresaw these labourers would find factory work. But it is also possible to imagine a darker future: as the French economist Thomas Piketty writes in another thought-provoking book, Capital in the Twenty-first Century, it is not clear what could stop this digitization trend—and the growing inequality it causes.
Either way, the key point is this: we have barely begun to understand the full implications of this second, digitized economy. That is a point we all need to consider more deeply. Start, perhaps, on the next occasion when you scan a bar code or place an order on Amazon with ease.
1. Amazon is mentioned to indicate that digital networks __________.| A．make the middle-class workers worse off |
| B．improve the efficiency of physical workers |
| C．exercise little influence on traditional retailing |
| D．bring customers excellent shopping experiences |
| A．free people from physical work | B．create an employee-friendly culture |
| C．assist workers with real skills | D．improve employers’ income and skills |
| A．By making a comparison. | B．By giving an example. |
| C．By confirming a prediction. | D．By challenging an assumption. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Favourable. |
| C．Negative. | D．Cautious. |
