1 . When you get in your car, you reach for it. When you’re at work, you take a break to have a moment alone with it. When you get into a lift, you play with it.

Cigarettes? Cup of coffee? No, it’s the third most addictive (使人上瘾的) thing in modern life — the cell phone. And experts say it is becoming more difficult for many people to curb their wishes to hug it more tightly than most of their personal relationships.

With its shiny surface, its smooth and satisfying touch, the cell phone connects us to the world even as it disconnects us from people three feet away. It affects us in ways its inventors in the late 1940s never imagined.

Dr. Chris Knippers, an expert at the Betty Ford Centre in Southern California, reports that the overuse of cell phones has become a social problem not much different from other harmful addictions: a barrier to one­on­one personal contact, and an escape from reality.

Sounds extreme, but we’ve all witnessed the evidence: the person at a restaurant who talks on the phone through an entire meal, ignoring his kids around the table; the woman who talks on the phone in the car, ignoring her husband; the teen who texts messages all the way home from school, avoiding contact with kids all around him. Is it just rude, or is it a kind of unhealthiness? And pardon me, but how is this improving the quality of life?

Jim Williams, an industrial sociologist based in Massachusetts, points to a study by Duke University researchers that found one­quarter of Americans say they have no one to discuss their most important personal business with. Despite the growing use of phones, e­mail and instant messaging, Williams says studies show that we don’t have as many friends as our parents. “Just as more information has led to less wisdom, more acquaintances (熟人) through the Internet and cell phones have produced fewer friends,” he says.

If the cell phone has truly had these effects, it’s because it has become very widespread. In 1987, there were only 1 million cell phones in use. Today, almost 300 million Americans carry them. The number of cell phones is far more than that of wired phones in the United States.

Teenagers sometimes turn to extreme methods to slim down quickly in a society where being thin is often seen     1     being beautiful. According to a recent survey of senior high school students’ lifestyles, almost one fifth of teenagers     2     (regular) skip meals, one in ten over-exercise and four per cent even take weight-loss medicine. Experts are concerned about     3     (them) health. They are increasing their efforts to educate teenagers about the side     4     (effect) of losing weight too quickly. They have also warned them       5       using such extreme methods, which are harmful.

It is normal for teenagers to be slightly overweight and there is no reason     6       they should be worried. However, for those who are dangerously overweight, it is very important that they try to lose weight properly.

Therefore, it is important to have a healthy     7     (balance) diet since teenagers are still growing and their bodies need a lot of nutrition       8     (function) well. What’s more, they should keep regular hours and get plenty of exercise to stay     9     (energy) and fit. We strongly encourage teenagers to follow these lifestyle tips, because living well is the     10     (safe) and most effective way to get into shape.

7 . Several studies in recent years have suggested that ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft can worsen traffic problems in cities, which continue to have high rates of private vehicle ownership.

Recently, a new study has found that ride-sharing services result in much more pollution than other kinds of private and public transportation. Ride-sharing trips also draw passengers away from more environment-friendly methods of travel, like public transportation, walking or biking, the study found.

The new study, carried out by the not-for-profit group Union of Concerned Scientists, represents an attempt to center on how ride-sharing services affect pollution. The research examined the effects of ride-sharing services on seven of America’s largest cities.

Overall, the researchers reported that ride-sharing trips now “result in an estimated 69 percent more climate pollution on average than the trips they displace.” The study notes that the same passengers could have chosen to travel by bus, train, bike, scooter or on foot.

One of the big reasons they give for this result is that ride-sharing vehicles are often driven with no passengers in the car. This happens when drivers are either waiting for rider requests, are on the way to pick up passengers or are driving in between pickups. This situation, known as “deadheading”, takes up about 42 percent of all ride-sharing driving activity, the study found. The researchers said that deadheading results in about 50 percent more carbon dioxide than one person driving in a private vehicle. Both Uber and Lyft do offer a choice of a “pooled” ride, which involves drivers picking up additional riders during the same trip.

The study urges services like Uber and Lyft to work to increase the number of pooled rides. It also urges the two companies to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road and to improve connections to public transportation centers.

Both Uber and Lyft have said in the past that most studies on the subject overstate the effects of their services on pollution. They have noted that the majority of vehicles on the road belong to private individuals or companies. Uber told Reuters news agency in a statement it had no comment on the latest report. But the company said it aims to be part of the solution to address climate change by working directly with cities. The statement added that Uber would continue to promote pooled trips and other means of transportation.

8 . Since App Store was set up, it has been selling consumers one simple thing: choice. Whether you wanted to play games, read the news, or do a thousand other things, there was something for whatever you desired.

Then something funny happened. Logging into the App Store today is like going into a shopping mall with only a coupon (优惠券) for one thing: There’s so much choice; it might be easier to give up than to choose.

It isn’t just consumers who are burdened, though. Too much content of all kinds also has economic effects. When countless choices are available, it causes pressure, pushing prices down and driving us a bit crazy.

So what is the way forward? Less choice itself may be a sensible strategy. There are already signs that this is happening. Firstly content companies are looking to prevent their offerings from getting lost in the tons of stuff. Most obvious is Disney, which is planning to open its own streaming service next year. The point is to narrow the focus so that those seeking Disney cartoons will have one place to go, rather than being around various services.

Yet if that represents a careful first step, there are more extreme options too. Consider the idea of a wine club: from tens of thousands of bottles each year, subscribers pay someone to select the most interesting ones. Perhaps what comes next for digital content is similar — carefully selected offerings from trusted sources that put choices in the hands of customers in order to get rid of the anxiety of choosing.

Up to now, too much choice in digital media has only one solution: the algorithm (运算法则). But we’ve seen the trouble with algorithms on You Tube. They feed you only what you’ve already said you like, not things you may not know you’re into. Worse, they have a tendency to serve up disturbing content. The way forward can’t simply be more or better algorithms.

Instead, it’s time for digital companies to start thinking about how to put limits on things: on how much we can use a device, or what we are available to choose from. As we move further into the digital revolution, what people ask for is clear: Less.

9 . Walking in the city is very different from walking in the park. A small psychology study suggests urban(城市的) environments can slow your step and possibly increase your mental load. A walk through nature, on the other hand, appears to ease your mind and quicken your pace. The findings show that natural settings may potentially reduce cognitive (认知的)tiredness and improve reaction times straight away. The study, which includes two experiments with two different approaches, was conducted among 65 university students in the lab.

The first of the two experiments in the new study focused on people’s way of walking and cognitive load. During this trial, participants were fitted with sensors and a dozen motion control cameras were set up to watch them repeatedly walk down a 15-metre room at their natural speed. The wall opposite them showed an image of either a nature scene or a city scene. After each walk, participants were asked to rate their feelings of discomfort in the visual environment. On the whole, when walking in city settings, people reported more discomfort and they walked at a slower pace, indicating a higher cognitive load.

The second experiment dug into some of the higher-level cognitive processes that might be at play. In the trial, participants were asked to distinguish between basic visual shapes on the computer while also in the presence of a natural or urban image(the same ones from the first experiment). Measuring reaction times in both natural and urban settings, the team found results to support their idea. In urban environments, participants were slower in distinguishing between simple shapes. The authors think this is because urban environments are more distracting(令人分心的) for our brains and take longer to process, but more research is needed to prove that idea.

While a healthy diet has always been considered necessary for fitness, many hospitals have failed to notice its powerful potential for curing. In some areas, that’s beginning to change. In Pennsylvania four years ago, St. Luke’s Hospital partnered with Rodale Institute to start an organic produce (有机农产品) farm at the hospital’s campus in Easton. Since its first season, the St. Luke’s farm has become greater in size.

Today, St. Luke’s sends all new mothers home with a basket of organic produce. New moms aren’t the only ones benefiting from the farm’s generous actions. Organic produce is also served to patients. Meanwhile, it is cooked up in cafeterias operated by the hospital’s six-campus network and sold at nearby farmers’ markets.

While some hospitals are getting food from nearby farms, others are turning unused land on their grounds into community (社区) gardens. Even though most hospital farms aren’t growing enough to completely give their workers and patients food needs, providing even a small amount of fresh produce makes educational information about how healthy and delicious a plant-rich diet can be.

While the farm-to-hospital movement continues to gain support, it’s experiencing some challenges along the way. For one, health workers don’t necessarily know how to grow food. This means that most hospitals need to hire a full-time farmer and other farm labor to manage the land, which can be expensive. It takes between 3 and 5 years for most hospital farms to make the cost and income equal. Even so, these hospitals believe that the benefits are worthwhile. As the movement continues to enlarge, you might soon experience a farm-fresh meal at a hospital near you.