1 . The recent spread of “fake news” may make it seem like misinformation is a relatively modern invention. But falsehoods (假话) and wild claims have been part of human culture for about as long as it’s existed. This is because misinformation originates with, and is spread by, fellow humans.

When you’ve ever had to communicate an important, but complex, issue to a general audience, you may have a sea of the most reliable data, the most elegant PowerPoint slides and the full backing of every famous expert in the relevant field. And yet, you can still be less persuasive than someone whose entire argument is: “A guy I met down the pub told me something different.”

In a perfectly sensible, logical world, someone who is loosely connected with a certain field or industry wouldn’t have the same influence as actual data, or the leading experts in the field. But humans aren’t perfectly sensible, logical creatures and neither is the world we live in.

The ability to think rationally and analytically is a relatively recent addition to our mental abilities (in the evolutionary sense). And it costs our brains a lot of energy and effort, The more established, fundamental systems in our brain, which shape memory and learning, are heavily reliant on emotion. The more emotionally stimulating something is, the easier it is to remember. That’s why we can spend months revising the material for a crucial school exam, but struggle to remember any of it once we’ve passed. Meanwhile, the embarrassing tine we slipped and landed on our backside in the school canteen. that memory will last until our dying day.

The most determined sceptics (无神论者) will often say, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” which is correct. But feelings don’t necessarily care about facts either. And ultimately, feelings have more of a say in what we think and do. And that’s why your mate down the pub can seem more believable than a pile of published research.

2 . An employee of a tech company, Laura Mae Martin, sent an email to her co-workers: What if for six weeks straight, you spent one night per week without technology gadgets (小装置)?     1     Then how to make it? Here’s a realistic guide to using your tech in a way that serves you.

Start with one simple question. Pay attention to when you have an urge to lift your phone or open social media. When you become aware of it, simply ask yourself, “Do I really need to do this right now?”     2    

Schedule tiny tech breaks.     3     But if you’re trying to spend less time staring at your screens, 10-or-15-minute breaks might be a more practical option. You might take a quick walk, or read a book.

    4     One way to create harmony with your technology is to limit your phone use when you’re on the move. Head out for a walk? Turn off your notifications (通知). Go to grab a coffee? Leave your phone on your desk. It may leave you focused on the present.

Make the technology work for you. To develop a healthy relationship with technology, you need to be in control of it and not the other way around.     5     Make it work for you, not against you. Remember it’s the intention behind how you’re using it that really makes the big difference.

3 . Recent studies suggest four out of 10 persons feel lonely at least one or two days per week, with younger persons (Millennials and Gen Z) exhibiting signs of extreme alienation (疏远) and disconnection more than other generations. Even older people, who are frequently regarded as lonely with few persons to speak to and objectively have lost many family members and friends, report less loneliness than Millennials. Why do Millennials report being the most lonely, and what can be done to address it?

Thirty percent of people between 23 and 38 said they often “feel lonely”. “But wait,” you may say. “Aren’t they connected through technology, social media platforms, and various apps?” Yes, but one of the challenges of extensive smartphone and app use today is that we are being trained to stare at screens rather than meet and have face-to-face conversations with people. Still, at the same time, people who spend more than 8 hours a day on screens per day tend to report other issues: depression, anxiety and other serious challenges to their well-being.

A meeting of minds used to happen via religious gatherings and school. So a possible solution is to create spaces and locations where one (and not just Millennials) can meet folks who share additional common interests. One possibility is through regular exercise outside the home. Going to a YMCA or a gym to a Zumba, yoga, or cycling class presents an opportunity to enjoy physical activity and have brief conversations with them before and after the session.

In addition to the obvious positive physical effects of the exercise, it can be surprising how beneficial a quick conversation can be with someone you may have just met. The boost in mood is palpable and can lead to better workouts due to increased available energy and motivation.

In conclusion, spending a little less time on the phone and a little more time walking in the neighborhood, in a park, or going early and staying late at the gym can work wonders for one’s mood and health.

4 . If you’ve ever discovered unexpected online shopping activity on your accounts- worth of See ’n Says, for example-you know the risks of handing your cellphone to a restless preschooler. But children’s impulse (冲动) buys just uncover the surface of potential risks when children and technology meet. With smartphones and the Internet so accessible, children are leaving their digital fingerprints at increasingly early ages, often without guidance on the importance of privacy or security.

For the past eight years, Michigan State University professors Jessica Vitak and Tamara Clegg have talked to parents, teachers and kids about the challenges of surfing the Internet. Their current project, Connecting Contexts, offers a variety of learning opportunities to help kids safely and smartly interact with the ever-progressing technology they encounter. “Having these conversations early,” said Vitak, “will build awareness and habits around privacy they can take into adulthood. ”

“Many of the parents we interviewed didn’t feel they needed to talk about privacy with their kids before middle or high school,” said Vitak. “But if you’re willing to hand your child a smartphone or a tablet, then they are old enough to learn how to use them safely. ”

In December, the Federal Trade Commission proposed massive changes to existing federal rules around how online platforms collect children’s data and make money from it. It grilled (责问) Meta, Discord and other social media companies last month on their efforts to protect children on their platforms. It also carried out six bills before the Congress would tighten online security and safety for kids.

Extending from elementary to middle school, their work offers tested tools and resources for parents, teachers and children-including conversation starters at home, practical tips for building a better password or using social media, choosing learning apps for the classroom and age-appropriate “micro-lessons” that can be integrated into the courses.

5 . Situated along a river that winds through the mountains, surrounded by cedar (雪松) and bamboo forests, Nanmoku is about 70 miles northwest of the capital city. Once known for its silk, wood, and konjac root (魔芋根), Nanmoku is now Japan’s most aged village, with two-thirds of its residents over 65. Many buildings are abandoned and the population has dropped from 11,000 in 1955to about 1,500 today, according to town hall figures. At that rate, the village could be empty just over a decade.

Nanmoku is on the front lines of Japan’s rural depopulation, a trend seen in other Asian and European countries. However, some residents are working to change the trend by attracting young people. One such person is 24-year-old Satomi Oigawa, who moved to Nanmoku after graduating from college in Tokyo. She works for the village government, matching abandoned homes with potential new residents. Oigawa is learning about the village’s history as she integrates into the community. “Everything about this house is part of the village’s history,” she says.

Despite efforts to attract new residents, the village faces challenges. There are few jobs for young people, and the nearest hospital is an hour’s drive away. Some residents argue that instead of spending money to attract newcomers, the money should be spent on those already living in the village.

Mayor Saijo Hasegawa aims to keep the village’s population level in 15to 20 years’ time, hoping to maintain it at around 800 people. However, experts like Peter Matan le of the University of Sheffield say that while some villages may boom, they will still experience pushback against the overpowering trend. “Japan is currently losing 600,000 to 700,000 people annually, and that’s going to increase to more than a million by the 2030s,” Matan le says. “Under that situation, how do settlements maintain their populations, let alone increase them?”

6 . Economic growth is often considered as a sure way of increasing the well-being of people in low-income countries, and global surveys in recent decades have supported this strategy by showing people in high-income countries tend to report higher levels of life satisfaction than those in low-income countries. This strong connection might suggest that only in rich societies can people be happy. However, a recent study conducted by ICTA-UAB and McGill University in Canada suggests that there may be good reasons to question whether this link is universal.

While most global surveys gather thousands of responses from the citizens of industrial and urban societies, they tend to ignore people in simple-and-tiny societies on the fringe, where social group has a limited number of members and where the exchange of money plays a minimal role in everyday life with natives and local communities depending directly on nature.

The research, published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), consisted of a survey of 2,966 people from local communities in 19 globally distributed sites. Only 64% of surveyed households had any cash income. The results show that “surprisingly, many populations with very low incomes report very high average levels of life satisfaction, with scores similar to those in wealthy countries,” says Eric Galbraith, researcher at ICTA-UAB and McGill University and lead author of the study.

The average life satisfaction score across the studied simple-and-tiny societies was 6.8 on a range of 0-10. Although not all societies reported high satisfaction levels, four of the sites reported average scores higher than 8, despite many of these societies having suffered histories of neglect and control. The results are consistent with the opinion that human societies can support very satisfactory lives for their members without necessarily requiring high degrees of material wealth.

“While the reasons behind these findings remain unclear, the study provides valuable insights into how diverse communities achieve satisfying lives. It offers hope that understanding these factors can help others improve their well-being while addressing sustainability concerns.” Galbraith concludes.

8 . If you’ve been on BookTok, an online community where readers recommend, review and theorize about their favorite books, authors and genres, you’ve probably heard of Rebecca Yarros’ Fourth Wing. On BookTok, the release of Fourth Wing came with hype (炒作) around a mix between romance and fantasy. The novel was published last May and its sequel (续集) followed just six months later.

But questions came: Are publishers and authors publishing books too quickly, and does this affect the quality of writing?

On the day of the sequel’s release, Yarros and her publisher, Red Tower Books, were met with much criticism about her misuse of a language’s grammar in the novel. Many argued that the mistakes could have been avoided if the publishers had hired someone to proofread (校对) the language.

So what does BookTok have to do with this? It was one of the reasons why within the first week of Fourth Wing being published, the book quickly shot up to the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list despite criticism.

With the rising readers, it isn’t uncommon for both publishers and authors to use that hype to their advantage. This was likely a reason why the series, originally including three books, was dragged into a five-book series.

This is kind of what fast fashion is all about. Fast fashion refers to the process of clothing manufacturing that moves from production/design to stores quickly to keep up with current trends. These pieces are often cheap and low-quality and sent to stores with the hope of selling out quickly. The same approach used in the publishing world, thanks to BookTok to some degree, could lead to decreasing book quality when writing and editing aren’t able to reach their maximum potential.

This isn’t to say that books like Fourth Wing are bad just because they’re hyped. But abandoning developed work for crowd-pleasers doesn’t do all readers justice. These worries about the quick turnover in the publishing industry aren’t directed towards independent authors who carefully write, edit and publish themselves, but rather towards those who overlook the importance of everything that goes into the writing process.

9 . The number of universities has grown very fast in recent decades. Higher-education institutions across the world now employ 15 million researchers, up from 4 million in 1980. Governments are also happy to spend on higher education because it is supposed to produce scientific breakthroughs that can be available to all. In theory, therefore, universities should be an excellent source of productivity growth.

In practice, however, the productivity has slowed down during the last decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, workers’ output per hour across the rich world rose by 4% a year. But in the last decade, 1% a year was the norm. Even with the wave of innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), productivity growth remains weak — less than 1% a year, which is bad news for economic growth.

A new paper by Ashish Arora and his team suggests that universities’ rapid growth and the rich world’s slowdown productivity could be two sides of the same coin. The paper suggests that scientific breakthroughs from public institutions “caused little or no response from businesses” over a number of years. A scientist in a university lab might publish brilliant paper after brilliant paper. Often, however, this has no impact on corporations’ own patents, with life sciences being the exception. And this, in turn, points to a small impact on the overall productivity.

Why do companies struggle to use ideas produced by universities?

The paper says that, free from the demands of the market, researchers in university labs focus more on satisfying their curiosity than finding breakthroughs that will change the world or make money. “To some degree, such kind of research is not a bad thing; some breakthrough technologies, such as penicillin, were discovered almost by accident,” it writes, “But if everyone is doing that, the economy suffers.”

Perhaps, with time, universities and the business world will work together more tightly. Tougher competition could force businesses to beef up their internal research. In fact, researchers in companies’ labs, rather than universities, are driving the current AI innovations. At some point, governments will need to ask themselves hard questions. In a world of weak economic growth, huge spending on universities may come to seem an unjustifiable luxury.

10 . Keith Payne realized he was poor for the first time when he was in the fourth grade. The awareness came to him when a new lunch lady in the cafeteria asked him to pay for his lunch.

“Previously, the lunch lady had just waved me on because I’d always been on free lunch,” he says. “But this new lady didn’t know how things worked, and it was the first time that I had been asked to pay for my lunch.”

It was an agonizing moment and all of a sudden, he realized why he got free lunch while many of his classmates were paying for their meals every day.

“It’s not like I was poorer the day after that than I was before. Nothing objective had changed. But because of that subjective awareness, I began constantly comparing myself with my classmates and felt really unhappy,” he says.

Keith Payne is now a social psychologist at the University of North Carolina and shares how the awareness of inequality affects the way that both our minds and our bodies respond.

“As we walk through the world, it is very natural for us to compare our lives with those of others. We think about ourselves in terms of being on a certain ladder (梯子) with some people above us and it can cause serious psychological consequences,” he says.

One is that it makes us more willing to seek out risks and engage in high-risk, high-reward sort of behaviors. It affects us in ways that are similar to physical threats.

“But I think there are wiser and less wise ways to make those social comparisons,” he says. “Upward social comparisons feel terrible, but they can be motivating. Downward social comparisons feel great, and yet they can be demotivating. So one of the things I recommend is that we can be more strategic in making upward and download social comparisons, Neither one is good in itself. It just depends on what your goal is.”