1 . We are in the midst of a battle for our attention. Our devices have affected our brains and destroyed our collective ability to concentrate. Journalist Johann Hair’s new book, Stolen Focus, has just joined the voices complaining about the great influence of the digital age. His and other recent books reflect a public perception that our focus is under attack.

Indeed, in our new research, we found some clear concerns. We surveyed a nationally representative sample of 2, 093 UK adults in 2021. Half of those surveyed felt their attention spans were shorter than they used to be, compared with a quarter who didn't And three quarters of participants agreed we're living through a time when there's non-stop competition for our attention between a variety of media channels and information outlets (渠道).

There has long been a worry about the threat to attention brought by new cultural forms, whether that’s social media or the cheap paperback sensation novels of the 19th century. Even as far back as ancient Greece, the philosopher Socrates complained that the written words created “forgetfulness in our souls”. There has always been a tendency to fear the effects that new media and technologies will have on our minds.

The reality is that we simply don’t have long-term studies that tell us whether our attention spans have actually shrunk. What we do know from our study is that people overestimate some of the problems. There’s no such thing as an average attention span. Our ability to focus varies hugely depending on the individual and the task at hand.

It’s also important not to ignore the many benefits that technology brings to our life. Much of the public surveyed recognized these, so while half thought big tech and social media were ruining young people’s attention spans, roughly another half felt that being easily distracted was more to do with people’s personalities than any negative influence that technology may or may not have. Also, half of the public believed multitasking at work and switching frequently between emails, phone calls, and other tasks can create a more efficient and satisfactory work experience.

3 . After astonishing breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, many people worry that they will be replaced by AI. Global Google searches for “is my job safe?” have doubled in recent months, as people fear that they will be replaced with large language models (LLMs). In a recent paper Tyna Eloundou of OpenAI and colleagues say that “around 80% of the US workforce could have at least 10% of their work tasks affected by the introduction of LLMs”.

Economists, however, tend to enjoy making predictions about automation more than they enjoy testing them. In the early 2010s many of them loudly predicted that robots would kill jobs by the millions, only to fall silent when employment rates across the rich world rose to all-time highs.

Few of the doom-mongers (末日论者) have a good explanation for why countries with the highest rates of tech usage around the globe, such as Japan, Singapore and the Republic of Korea, consistently have among the lowest rates of unemployment.

Here we introduce our first attempt at tracking AI’s impact on jobs. Using American data on employment by occupation, we single out white-collar workers.

White-collar roles are thought to be especially sensitive to generative AI, which is becoming ever better at logical reasoning and creativity. However, there is as yet little evidence of an AI hit to employment. In the spring of 2020 white-collar jobs rose, as many people in service occupations lost their job at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And in the past year the white-collar share of employment in professions thought to be at risk from generative AI has risen by 0.5%.

Of course, it’s still early days for generative AI. Few firms yet use generative Al tools at large scale, so the impact on jobs could merely be delayed.

Another possibility, however, is that these new technologies will end up destroying only a small number of roles. While Al may be efficient at some tasks, it may be less good at others, such as management and working out what others need.

AI could even have a positive effect on jobs. If workers using it become more efficient, profits at their company could rise which would then allow bosses to ramp up hiring.

A recent survey by Experis, an IT-recruitment firm, points to this possibility. More than half of Britain’s employers expect AI technologies to have a positive impact on the number of their staff over the next two years, it finds.

To see how it all shakes out, we will publish updates to this analysis every few months. But for now, a job apocalypse seems a long way off.

4 . Eating out is such a pleasure-the food, the wine, the joy of having it all brought to you by someone else — that it’s a pity to ruin the experience by sharing it with other people.

Well, I do like visiting restaurants with friends. But dining out alone has its own very special attractions. For a start you can give all your attention to the food. There’s nothing worse than having to invent and deliver an opinion on school league tables or Sanchez’s move to Manchester United, plus listen to everyone else’s opinions, when all you really want to do is enjoy each mouthful along the way.

A second great thing about eating out alone is the chance to combine food with one of life’s other true pleasures: reading. You have to plan this carefully: Indian or Chinese restaurants are best—you need food you can eat with just one hand, leaving the other free to hold your reading material.

But perhaps the biggest attraction of a table for one is the chance it gives to people- watching. Restaurants and the different reasons for visiting them-first date, business meeting, night out with friends-produce human behaviour of surprising richness and variety. Will the man selling his business idea get any joy out of his possible investor (投资者)? Will the married couple think of anything to say to each other before their main courses arrive?

This “human zoo” part of eating out alone is one of the reasons I’d hate to be famous: everyone would be watching you, so you wouldn’t be able to watch them. The snooker player Steve Davis says this was one of the strangest consequences of becoming well-known: he got very worried about his eating in public, almost to the level of doubting whether he was “doing it right.”

So next time you’re considering your eating out choices, remember the advice of the businessman Nubar Gulbenkian: “The best number for a dinner party is two — myself and a super head waiter.”

5 . Online classes began to be popularized just a few decades ago. They are advertised as a way for adults to finish their education and students to learn the material at their own pace—it is far more suitable for people with busy schedules.

But after being enrolled in an online course last fall semester, I came to realize online classes were merely a means to fulfil course requirements.

First of all, students lack the desire to learn, and they simply complete their assignments to receive credit for a passing grade rather than genuinely engage with the course material.

As online courses tend to have more than 100 students, most of the assignments are short and simple. They are not designed for students to interact with the material in depth but designed to be graded casily to accommodate such a large number of students.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of taking an online class is the absence of face-to-face interaction between the teacher and their students. Live sessions are infrequent and are often scheduled during the middle of the day when students have to attend other classes or work. The office hours of the professor may also be during inconvenient times for many students as well. Most interaction with the professor has to be through email which is often impersonal. It is nearly impossible for students to build a relationship with their professor.

There is also little interaction amongst students. It can be harder for students to create study groups and form relationships with their peers.

Online classes also require either a computer or laptop and a reliable internet connection. Not all students have access to these types of resources, whether it is for financial or other reasons, and some students can be put at a disadvantage.

Offering online classes certainly helps students who would otherwise not be able to attend classroom sessions. However, they fail to provide a genuine education with an emphasis on convenience rather than critical thinking. We need restructured online classes in which students can have a learning experience that will actually provide quality education.

6 . One minute, Peggy Lewis and her husband, Harris Lee, were watching the trees blow in the wind. The next, they were surrounded by flying pieces of glass from the house’s broken windows. The roof was torn off. The walls caved in (塌陷). After the 152-mph tornado (龙卷风) had passed, it took a team of neighbors to pull the couple from the rubble (碎砖) and take them to the hospital.

When the pair returned to their house three days later, it was clear that what remained of the house would need to be torn down, but before Peggy would let that happen, she wanted one thing first—her family Bible.

Peggy had bought the Bible 35 years earlier, at the start of her marriage. Like many people, she’d used it to hold her family’s history — old photos, and a handkerchief from her great-grandmother.

The Bible was the first thing Peggy looked for when she returned to the house. When two volunteers showed up, Peggy had one task for them.

After an hour of searching, one of the volunteers ran up to her. Peggy had tears running down her face. The young woman had found the book while looking through rubble. Surprisingly, while many other books inside the house had been destroyed beyond recognition, the Bible was still complete, even though it had sat in the rain for days. “I completely broke down,” says Peggy. “I thought it was gone forever.” She was extremely grateful.

Peggy and her family were living at a friend’s house until they got back on their feet. But the book already has its well-deserved place of honor, in Peggy’ borrowed dresser. She knows that while every good book tells stories of disastrous (灾难性的) weather and unlikely survival, this one actually lived it.

7 . When Americans think of the lunch menu at their childhood school dining halls, they probably imagine the shapeless, tasteless meat — plus some brown mush (糊状物) to match. But for children in Japan, school lunches are a rich experience where the students learn about culture and nutrition (营养) of foods.

“Japan’s opinion is that school lunches are a part of education, not a break from it,” Masahiro Oji, a government director of school health education in Japan said. The food offered at schools in Japan is affordable, fresh, and made by the students themselves. And Japanese children don’t just eat the food they prepare; they learn about the nutrition and culture of their meals, too. The food is grown locally and includes a balanced menu of rice, vegetables, fish, and soups. Even better, each meal only costs just $2.50.

“Parents hear their kids talking about what they had for lunch,” Tatsuji Shino, the headmaster at Umejima Elementary School in Tokyo said, “and kids ask them to re-create the meals at home.” Japanese students also learn cooperation (合作) and etiquette skills as they serve and clean up after each other.

Considering the fact that Japan has one of the world’s lowest childhood obesity rates (肥胖), the US probably has a lot to learn from this country’s school lunches. A recent study found that American students who regularly ate the school lunch — where choices include pizza, chicken, and French fries — were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home.

For American parents who want to be a little more like the Japanese, try sending your children to school with these great school lunches for kids who hate sandwiches.