1 . What your dinner photos on Instagram say about you

Posting pictures on Instagram is a modern day version of writing a journal: It’s all about creating a connection between ourselves, our lives, friends, family and the wider public.     1     Each day, at least 95 million posts are shared on Instagram.

    2     Some people will post photos of their pets, their holidays or their social life — but in recent years, posting photos of the food that we eat conveys to the viewer something more than the food itself.

If someone posts photos of a meal that they have just cooked, the message they’re trying to convey is that they are a capable person. For example, if someone is on a health kick, they often seek social approval. If they’ve made a really healthy meal, they will typically post it with hashtags “#” like diet or health, which tie into other people’s experiences.     3    

There is also a growing trend of people taking photos of their food when they dine out at a restaurant.     4     These Instagrammers often tag places that are considered selective or to have a certain clientele (顾客群) , like celebrities — to indicate that they’re a person of worth. It feeds into their need for social approval and is a way of boosting their own self-esteem.

If people are on a diet or trying to eat a bit better, they can use platforms like Instagram to track what they’ve been eating. It’s a way of motivating other people as well as holding themselves responsible, while subconsciously saying “    5    ”. Sharing the diet is a way of both getting attention and taking responsibility from a wider audience.

3 . It happens in every disaster (灾难): For those in need, people often donate (捐赠) things that turn out to be more of a trouble.

Juanita Rilling remembers it happened in 1988 when she was a disaster expert trying to help people suffering from a hurricane (飓风) in Honduras. “One morning I received a call from one of our logistic operators (物流运营商), and he explained to me that there was a plane carrying medical supplies that needed to land,” says Rilling. “But the ground was full, with lots of donations that no one had required. The plane—full of needed supplies—had to find someplace else to go. And it ended up stopping everyone’s plans by about 48 hours, which is important time in a disaster.”

Rilling now runs the Center for International Disaster Information, which is trying to make sure things like that don’t happen again. So when Superstorm Sandy hit, Rilling’s group started a project to encourage money donation. “Even a small donation can make a big difference and can quickly become exactly what people affected by a disaster need most,” Rilling says. But despite this, donators do that over and over. About 60% of the things donated after a disaster couldn’t be used. Often it’s old clothing or food.

Meghan Hara, who deals with kind donations for the American Red Cross, says she knows that some people are careful with giving money. And she doesn’t think that the need to give something concrete (实物) should be completely stopped.

“Part of what people are doing is that they’re helping, and they’re trying to help. What we need to work out is how to effectively deal with that,” Hara says.

4 . Sometimes the stress of work can get to be so high, so it’s nice to get away for a while. However, even on vacation, it can be hard to leave all your worries at the office-especially when you think about the mountain of emails.

Iceland now offers a solution with a service called OutHorse Your Email. The service encourages visitors to disconnect and enjoy the country’s beauty while one of several highly trained Icelandic horses replies to any email. “When visitors travel to Iceland we want them to fully experience everything our nation has to offer,” one official said. “Our OutHorse Your Email service lets them do just that.”

To use the service, you should fill in a form on its website and your personalized out-of- office email will be written by one horse and sent automatically (自动地). The email explains the sender is away on vacation and that they’ve given their email jobs to one of Iceland’s four- legged animals. It then includes the message created by the animal. But how do horses type an email? They’ve got their own specially designed horse-sized keyboards in the fields and are able to walk across the keys. However, that still doesn’t mean coherency (条理性). They’re horses, after all. The result is just meaningless collections of letters.

This might seem like a joke, but is actually meant seriously. Nowadays the line between private life and work has become unclear. The service draws attention to the fact that people have the right to be away from work during their holiday. It also sends a message that Iceland is a unique destination by helping tourists go on a real holiday. It’ll surely put a smile on their face and make them want to vacation in Iceland.

6 . It seems as if social media platforms have taken over our lives. According to a study, there were over 3.6 billion social media users in 2021. And that number is only expected to grow.

Although social media platforms have helped to keep friends and family connected, there is also a dark side to social media. To put it simply, it is a money making machine. This is partially because of social media influencers. A social media influencer is someone “who can shape audience’s attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media”. You may be asking yourself, “Why would they want to do this, though?” The answer is simple: to make money. Social media influencers make money by promoting brands among their followers. In fact, influencer marketing is so profitable that the study reported that the industry is expected to reach $15 billion in value in 2022.

Social media influencers are now being called out because some of their actions have started to negatively impact the environment. One man in particular, who goes by Steve to remain anonymous (匿名的), noticed that some online influencers failed to follow rules when they went to national parks or public places. This included things like leaving garbage behind, or using drones (无人机) to take pictures from the sky.

Because of this, Steve made it his mission to stop social media influencers from hurting the environment with their bad behavior in order to get the “perfect shot”. In 2018, he made the account “Public Lands Hate You” to name and shame influencers who failed to follow the rules made to protect the environment. The account now has over 85 thousand followers.

He hoped that it could help some influencers find the light and right their wrongs. Steve said, “If everybody thought just a little bit more about their small actions and the impact those actions have on the environment and the people around them, I think that a lot of our bigger problems would be much more easily solved.”

8 . With smart phones and e-readers becoming more common, some worry that the days of paper books are numbered. But as a recent survey showed, traditional books are still popular among readers.

Industry research company Nielsen found that 7 percent more paper books were sold in the UK in 2020 compared to the previous year, while sales of their digital rivals declined(下降)by 4 percent. It was the sixth year in a row that e-book sales had fallen.

Nielsen’s survey, surprisingly, found that it is young people who preferred physical books to e-reader versions.

In another study conducted in 2016 by the youth research agency Voxburner in the UK, more than 60 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds said they preferred print books to e-books. The most popular reason given was: “I like to hold the product.”

Steve Bohme, research director at Nielsen Book Research UK, explained that young people were using books as a break from their daily connections to electronic devices(设备)and social media. “We are seeing that books are a respite(缓解), particularly for young people who are so busy digitally,” he said.

And it is not just young people in the UK who prefer print books. The story is the same in other countries.

According to a study, 92 percent of college students prefer paper books to e-books, of more than 420 university students from the United States, Slovakia, Japan and Germany.

The main reasons were that when reading e-books, students are easily distracted. Some also ended up with headaches or painful eyes.

In addition, print books can bring a very different reading experience-a sense of accomplishment when finishing reading.

9 . Online games are very popular among people. They make a large amount of money and have a large user base, including lots of teenagers. But now, new rules on online games have been introduced, which are aimed at fighting against addiction (成瘾) among underage players.

Adult players need to spend most of their time paying attention to work and family, and cannot play games as often as they want. However, underage players have more spare time, but less responsibility and self-control. Children without a clear purpose in life, where there is less family education and school management, might easily become addicted to all kinds of online games and online novels.

The most direct impact of an addiction to online games among underage players is on their psychological (心理) health. According to psychologists, people seriously addicted to games can become anxious, bad tempered, and avoid responsibility.

However, Chinese parents are more worried that their children will lack interest in studying if they become addicted to online games, as academic success is important for students. Additionally, when their children become addicted to such games, most parents do not know how to deal with the situation.

To carry out the new rules to the best effect, more specific issues need to be solved, such as managing foreign online games, ensuring that facial recognition technologies used by games companies have the wanted effect or making sure online game providers can only offer one-hour services to underage players on Saturdays and Sundays. While there are always loopholes (漏洞) in new rules, authorities should act quickly to close them.

There is no doubt that online games have harmful effects on young people. It is not acceptable for a large number of teenagers or those even younger, to become addicted to these games.