If you are like most young people, you’ll have been online or used a phone at some point today. A bit of screen time is fine especially if you are studying, socializing     1     simply relaxing. Yet too much screen time can be bad for your brain.

A recent study of more than 4,000     2     (child) found that those who played on a screen for more than two hours a day did     3     (badly) in thinking tests than those who seldom used mobile phones. Staring (盯) at things online can also mean that you are missing out on the real world. Every hour looking at a screen     4     (be) an hour you can spend being with your friends or learning a new,     5     (excite) hobby.

If you are worried that you are spending too many hours scrolling (滚动) through social media feeds, glued to the television or     6     (addict) to games, you might want to think about cutting down a bit, or even going cold turkey,     7     means giving up completely, rather than just     8     (cut) back.

See if you can go     9     (total) screen-free for a week, a month or whatever you feel you can manage. If that’s too hard, just cut out one thing, such as games. When     10     challenge is over, you might even feel differently about your favorite gadgets (小装置).

3 . In the digital age, we rely on technology such as social media in trying to build interesting and varied lives. Social networking sites like Facebook are designed and promoted to make us believe enthusiastically that they are able to open up new experiences for us. There are constant notifications (通知) and updates, urging us to check-in to find out what is new.

But if we do not use the technology wisely, we can end up becoming overly attached and trapped in a cycle of social media FOMO, a sign of deeper unhappiness. FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a fear that exciting or interesting events are happening somewhere else and that we are not able to join.

People who experience high levels of FOMO have been found to be more likely to give in to urges to write and check text messages while driving, as well as to use Facebook more often directly after waking, while going to sleep and during meals.

When it comes to lasting happiness, it is best not to give in to FOMO, but rather to deal with the cycle of desires that fuel it. Hard as it is, we are better off working toward facing the fearful reality that we cannot experience everything we might like than to get caught in a cycle of checking behaviors that only cause anxiety.

If we have become used to using social media as part of our attempts at living interesting lives, we must admit that it is not easy to change our approach. But change is almost always worthwhile in the long run.

The fact that FOMO is so common in our digital age is a sign that there is something wrong with the way we are pursuing happiness and that we are not as happy as we might think we are. It should warn us that, in our eagerness to use digital technology to try to make ourselves happier, we may unintentionally (无意之中) be bringing on exactly the opposite result.

4 . Girls should take part in competitive sport to build confidence, and the leaders of a group of girls’ schools will argue this week. Helen Fraser, director of the Girls’ Day School Trust(GDST), will tell the group that sport can help girls deal with failure.

“All girls, not just the sporty ones, should take physical exercise,” Ms. Fraser says. Research that girls are far less active than boys is worrying, she argues. Ms. Fraser will tell the group that she supports “sport for all”. “That’s why I love it when our schools have A, B, C and D teams and beyond,” she says.

The GDST draws on research from the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation which suggests only a quarter of girls in England meet basic levels of activity each week. One in five girls do no activity at all, twice the proportion of boys, the research suggests.

Ms. Fraser says other research suggests that more than 80% of women business leaders played sports while growing up. She uses the examples of former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who once was a skater and tennis player, and the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, who was in the French national swimming team. Ms. Fraser says Olympic medallists like Jessica Ennis and Katherine Grainger are excellent role models for young women but says women’s sport needs more money and more news reports.

Valerie Dunsford, head of Sheffield High School for Girls, part of GDST, said it was important to offer a large number of sports to attract different types of girls. “Not everyone wants to be out playing the hockey.” said Ms. Dunsford.

Reading a paper book may be a forgotten luxury for many people thanks to today's busy lifestyles     1     listening to a book while shopping or jogging is a growing trend. Now, audio books (有声书) can be easily downloaded from the Internet at the same, if not     2     (low), prices as the print editions.

Mary Beth Roche, publisher of Macmillan Audio, says many of their     3     (read) use audio books as a “multitasking tool", a way to consume books when their eyes are busy. For others, whose work may involve spending lots of time     4     (look) at the screen, audio books area way to relax. "It's sort of nice to sit back and have a story     5     (tell) to you," said Roche.

In the United States, audio books     6     (become) a serious business for a long time     7     (simple) because Americans on average spend so much time in their cars. "It is a good way for consumers to make the time in traffic quality time,” said Roche. “Even way back when it was the cassette and then the CD, the number one place    8     people listened was in car. When audio books became available     9     the digital form, people started using     10     during other activities-- when they are shopping, jogging, performing household tasks and so on.”

10 . We often hear that 60 is the new 50. Just check out images of your grandparents or great-grandparents and notice their stooped (驼背的) bodies, their wrinkled faces when they were barely pushing 60. What a contrast with energetic, gym-going sexagenarians (60几岁的人) of today!

A research, overseen by gerontologist Taina Rantanen, compared adults born in 1910 and 1914 with those born roughly 30 years later. Both birth groups were examined in person at age 60 and again at 70 with the same set of six physical tests and five measures of cognition.

According to the research, the later-born group could walk faster, had a stronger hand grasp and could use more force with their lower legs. On cognitive tests, the later-born group had better verbal fluency, and scored higher on a test matching numbers to symbols. But not everything changed across the generations: measures of lung function were surprisingly not changing, and there was no improvement in the short-term-memory task of recalling a series of digits.

There are many reasons why people are aging better, including improved medical care and a drop in smoking, but the key factor shown in the study of physical function was that the later-born adults were more physically active and had bigger bodies, which suggests better nutrition. For brain function, the key seems to be more years of education.

Education is a powerful influence on aging and health, says Luigi Ferrucci, scientific director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging: “With more education, you are probably going to have a larger income, which means you are more likely to go to the doctor, and have good nutrition.” He also points out that the average life span is seven years shorter in a poor state such as Mississippi than in a wealthier one such as California. “Here we still have lots of people who cannot take the drugs they need because they cannot pay for them,” he says. In short, 60 may be the new 50 for many of us but not for all.