1 . Twelve-year-old Catherine has a lot of friends—632, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.

But is it possible that Catherine’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.

Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not words with friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.

Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platform.

In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger. “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.

Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual world, we will have little time for our real-world friendships,” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need anyone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.

2 . How to Avoid an Internet Addiction

It may seem like everyone surfs the web these days. But if you can’t have interest in other aspects of your life because of the Internet, you may be on your way to an Internet addiction. You might fear you’re the only one who has experienced that feeling.    1     Luckily, there are some ways to avoid living your life in front of the computer.

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More and more people in the world are becoming addicted to the Internet, and you are not the only one with this problem. So do not be embarrassed. Just be brave to admit that you are on your way to an Internet addiction. And then find others with the same problem and help each other beat it.

Set aside limited time for computer use.

Make sure not to turn it on too many times a week. If you have a laptop, make sure to put it somewhere that you can remember but not somewhere that you see every day. Try keeping the lid closed when you are not using it.     3       If you have a desktop PC, try not to go near it or put something over it like a sheet.

Call people instead of sending instant messages or texts.

If you are free on weekends, call friends and ask them to go outside to do something you enjoy, like playing a sport. This will take your mind off the computer.     4    

Use an alarm clock or timer (计时器).

Before using your computer, decide on a time limit such as 30 minutes. Set the clock or timer and make sure that you get away from the computer when the time is up. Alternatively create a shutdown timer on your desktop.     5    

3 . The first week of September was a week that I had been expecting (期待) all summer. I didn’t want summer to end, but I was excited about going to high school for my first week.

When I got to school in the morning on the first day, I realized how large the school was, and how many students went there. I ended up in the wrong classroom because of the size of the school. Luckily, a kind senior showed up and guided me to my homeroom before I was late. I was happy to see that in a class of unfamiliar (不熟悉的) faces, the only open seat was next to my good friend Casey. My science teacher seemed like a good teacher. She was exciting and fun.

After finishing four classes without too much of a challenge, I didn’t feel too bad about ninth grade. However, the fifth class changed everything. I didn’t feel ready after all. My teacher’s name is Mr. Valassidis but he told us to call him Mr. V. Mr. V told us that we would have to write 40 essays (文章) and read AP-level books such as The Odyssey this year. I love reading and writing. But come on. 40 ESSAYS? AP-level books? Now I was afraid.

The courses in high school seem like they’re going to get much harder, but they haven’t yet. Even though my classes look hard, they look really exciting too.

The first week passed quickly. Although a lot of things were overwhelming (令人不知所措的): the size of the campus, the crowds (人群) and the seniors, having a totally different experience than I had ever had before was really exciting. Now, I’m really happy about high school. I have lots of friends in my classes, I really like my teachers and I’m meeting new people.

4 . The African elephant holds the record for sleeping the least among mammals — about two hours a day — but now, the elephant seal is giving its namespace a run for its money. Recent experiments on elephant seals showed the animals averaged only two hours of sleep per day during the seven months out of the year they spent at sea.

Jessie Kendall-Bar, a Ph. D. at the University of California, discovered elephant seals’ special ability. She found in the open ocean, elephant seals sleep less than two hours per day. While on land, they sleep more than 10 hours a day. “That’s really special,” she says. Previous observations had shown that elephant seals in the open ocean surface for a couple of minutes at a time. So scientists knew that they must be sleeping underwater. But they knew very little about it.

To find out more, Kendall-Bar developed a headcap to gather data about the animals’ brain waves, heart rates, dive (潜水) depths, and movements to determine when they were sleeping. She discovered that seals do not sleep in two-hour bursts. Instead, they take some “catnaps (小睡)” lasting less than 20 minutes each. Starting at the surface, adult seals take 10-minute dives at great depths, usually from 300 to 1,000 feet.

At this point, the animals enter the first stage of sleep, or slow-wave sleep. Then, they fall into REM sleep, when their bodies turn upside down. It seems REM sleep at great depths is risky because of the inability to escape at that moment. “It is just scary to imagine an animal doing this underwater in that state,” says study co-author Terrie Williams.

But what’s likely happening is that the seals are sleeping at great depths where their primary hunters — sharks and killer whales — hardly appear. “The elephant seal is basically using its ability to div e really deep as a protective mechanism (机制),” says Kendall-Bar. “It doesn’t have to keep one eye open or stay awake. It’s sleeping with its entire brain.”

7 . One good part about school is field trips. Students can get out of the classroom and into the real world, even if just for a few hours.    1    Whether it is learning how to feed chickens on the farm or understanding how gravity works at the science museum, these hands-on learning experiences bring them benefits.

Students do better in school. Students who go on field trips generally have better grades.    2    In fact, in a study conducted by some researchers, 89% of adults said educational trips had a positive, lasting impact on their education and career. It's because the trips made them more curious and interested in and out of school.

    3    When exploring a new place, students have the opportunity to listen to and talk to new people. They can learn how to effectively communicate with strangers, get along with them and work with them. For example, they may acquire the skill of using body language to interact with strangers.

Students learn to be more independent. A field trip includes many things. Although adults are in charge, it’s also up to students to figure out what exhibits they want to learn about, how they can finish certain tasks, etc. During field trips, students can have many such situations to learn to be independent. In the process, they sometimes may feel unpleasant and stressed.    4    

Students develop a stronger connection to a neighborhood. By getting out of the classroom and, into the streets, students can become more familiar with a neighborhood.    5    Moreover, they have the chance to communicate with local people, which also improves their connection to the neighborhood.

8 . There’s a new AI bot: ChatGPT, and you’d better pay attention, even if you aren’t into artificial intelligence. The tool is an AI chatbot system that OpenAI released in November 2022 to show off and test what a very large, powerful AI system can achieve.

ChatGPT remembers the thread of your dialogue, using previous questions and answers to inform its next responses. It derives its answers from huge volumes of information on the Internet. ChatGPT is built on top of the OpenAI GPT-3 family of large language models and is fine-tuned (a method of transfer learning) using both supervised and reinforcement learning (监督和强化学习).

You can ask ChatGPT anything, like explaining physics, asking for birthday party ideas and getting programming help. Perhaps it’s not smart enough to replace all humans yet, but it can be creative, and its answers can sound downright authoritative. A few days after its launch, more than 1 million people were trying out ChatGPT. UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley estimated in February 2023 that ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly users in January, accomplishing in 2 months what took TikTok about 9 months and Instagram two and a half years.

ChatGPT is free to use at the moment because it is still in its research phase. But when too many people hop onto the server, it overloads and can’t process your request. It just means you should try visiting the site at a later time when fewer people are trying to access it. If you want to skip the wait and have reliable access, there is an option for you. As of Feb. 1, 2023, OpenAI has a ChatGPT pro plan, ChatGPT Plus, which allows users to have general access even during peak times. This service does come at a cost of $20/month.

However, ChatGPT can not replace Google. ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence robot that provides solutions to your questions, but Google is a search engine in which you can search for as much information as possible. ChatGPT has limited knowledge due to its programming but Google has unlimited knowledge which is updated every day.

9 . If you’re new to San Francisco, paying the city a visit, or simply looking for a new playground for you and your dog, here are four of the finest dog parks in San Francisco.

Corona Heights Dog Park

Often visited by residents from all over the city because of its nearness to the Randall Museum, Corona Heights Dog Park offers pets and owners breathtaking view after a steep hillside climb, and a fenced dog area that allows dogs to let loose without a leash (狗链). Owners will also enjoy the playground, tennis courts and basketball courts.

Dolores Dog Park

The grounds of Dolores Park once served as camps for those who were left homeless by the 1906 earthquake, but now are often visited by crowds of Mission District people. Four-legged friends can also wander about care free off-leash while making friends with other members of the doggie community.

Pine Lake Dog Park

Famous for its place as a rest stop for hundreds of species of birds to fly to and from warmer climates, Pine Lake Park is also prized by city dogs and their owners for their nice hiking paths, picturesque lake suited for swimming, and off-leash area on the park’s west end that lets dogs run free.

Buena Vista Dog Park

With a history of 146 years, Buena Vista Park is San Francisco’s oldest park. Dogs and owners with plus energy will love burning it on this park’s steep paths and winding staircases. Dog owners should have good control over their dogs, as it’s quite easy for dogs to get separated when going through Buena Vista’s many twists and turns.

10 . I grew up in a poor family. This was something I did not realize until I was older. I thought everyone in the city took the bus, because everyone in my neighborhood took the bus. I thought everyone in the city used the food bank, because all my friends’ cupboards were filled with the same government-labeled food that filled my cupboards. We all wore hand-me-down clothes.

Grocery shopping was my first experience understanding that my family was a little different. My mom used paper money that looked different from the paper money others in line were using. I asked my mom why our money looked different. She said that we used food stamps that were helped by the government so we could eat.

In high school, I was still embarrassed and wished we were not so poor, but I loved my mom and the other members of my family and knew we had things to be proud of. My mother taught me how to love and told me to believe in myself. Growing up in poverty taught me perseverance (毅力). I have always believed in myself and my abilities. I knew I could focus on school and build a life that looked different from my childhood.

As I became a man, I started understanding how my experiences enabled me to be resilient (有韧性的), and how to respect people for who they are as an individual—and not by what they have. I think there are a lot of fixed images placed on those experiencing poverty that do not actually come from the people experiencing it. These judgments come from people on the outside trying not to look into the experience. Hardworking , trustworthy, reliable, clean, efficient, successful and disciplined are all words not typically associated with poverty. But those words are very much shown by those experiencing poverty. I am proud to be who I am and proud of where I’m from.