1 . On January 1^st, 2018, “gaming disorder” — in which games are played uncontrollably, despite causing harm — gained recognition from the World Health Organization (WHO). Last year, China, the world’s biggest gaming market, announced new rules limiting children to just a single hour of play a day. Clinics are appearing around the world, promising to cure patients of their habit.

Are games really addictive? Psychologists have different opinions. The case for the defence is that this is just another moral panic. Similar warnings have been given about television, rock’ n’ roll, jazz, comic books, and even novels. As the newest form of mass media, gaming is merely enduring (忍受) its own time before it finally stops being controversial.

However, some argue that unlike rock bands or novelists, games developers have both the motive and the means to engineer their products to make them addictive. For one thing, the business-model has changed. In the old days games were bought once and for all. But these days, games are free and money is earned from purchases of in-game goods, which ties playtime directly to developers’ income. For another, games makers combine psychological theory and data, which helps them maximize the playtime. Smartphones and modern video game machines use their permanent Internet connections to send gameplay data back to developers. That allows products to be constantly adjusted to increase spending on games.

The gaming industry should realize that, in the real world, it has a problem, and that problem is growing. Now that gaming addiction comes with an official WHO recognition, diagnoses (诊断) become more common. Clinics are already reporting booming business, as lockdowns have given gamers more time to spend with their hobby. And being put together in the public mind, fairly or not, with gambling will not do the industry any favours.

You might have heard of the word game Wordle.     1     online puzzle has become so popular that some people cannot go a day without it. By November 1, 2021, only 90 people     2    (play) Wordle but within two months, that number had grown to 300,000. Social media users helped grow the     3    (popular) of the game.

Wordle can be played once per day. It is very simple and that may be     4     it spreads so quickly. It contains just 30 empty squares     5     (appear) under the name “WORDLE.”

Players get six chances to guess a five-letter word that has been chosen by the game     6     that day. The goal is to guess the word in the least number of     7     (try). To start, players enter a real word     8    letters then turn different colors to provide clues about the word. A green letter means the letter is in the word     9     is in the right position. Yellow means the letter appears in the word but is in the wrong place while a gray letter means it does not appear in the word at all.

Originally, the game     10     (create) to activate office atmosphere by Josh Wardle, a New York software engineer.

Weiqi is an ancient game of strategy. It invented as early as 4,000 years ago. A word weiqi means surrounding game, so one object of the game is to surround the other player’s pieces. Around the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the game was brought to Korea and then Japan, where it gradual became popular. In Japan the game was called igo translating from Chinese directly. Despite that its popularity in East Asia, weiqi was only introduced to the West in the early twenty century through Japan. Therefore, most non-Chinese know the game by its Japanese name and used Japanese terms while playing it. To avoid mistaking the name go as the English word go , the first letters of the name of the game is usually capitalized:Go.

The Most Important Video Game Ever Made

Time Magazine recently tasked its editorial staff with ranking the 50 greatest video games of all time. The number one spot was taken not by Super Mario, Zelda, or any other worthwhile competitors, but by the oldest and most basic game, Tetris.     1     It lives on in tablets, laptops, smartphones, and game consoles.

Why is Tetris the game we can’t stop playing? Before Tetris, video games were distractions for teens, personified by Super Mario Bros. Tetris was different. It didn’t rely on the imitation of any cartoon characters.     2     The game was purely abstract, geometry in real time. It wasn’t just a game. It was an uncrackable code puzzle that anyone could play. Your parents played Tetris, your friends played Tetris, and you’ll encounter the same story in nearly every country on Earth.

    3     It has been included in the Applied Design collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It has been adapted as interactive public art projected onto the sides of buildings. And it is the subject of an annual World Championship competition.

There are plenty of fascinating classic games. Why do we keep coming back to Tetris year after year? Scientists have discovered that Tetris has a unique effect on the human brain, making it the perfect tool for scientific research.     4     It is a term used in both medical and popular literature. It describes the result of repetitive, pattern-based activity that eventually shapes the thoughts and imagination of an individual. This unique effect has been used in studies at Oxford University to treat stress disorder.

That’s pretty impressive for a few lines of code written by a lone computer scientist at the Russian Academy of Science in 1984. I have no doubt the first game many of us will download on the new phone will be the latest version of the most important game in history, Tetris.

8 . Some parents will buy any high-tech toy if they think it will help their child, but researchers said puzzles help children with math-related skills.

Psychologist Susan Levine, an expert on mathematics development in young children at the University of Chicago, found children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 later develop better spatial skills. Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of cognition(认知) after controlling for differences in parents’ income, education and the amount of parent talk, Levine said.

The researchers analyzed video recordings of 53 child-parent pairs during everyday activities at home and found children who play with puzzles between 26 and 46 months of age have better spatial skills when assessed at 54 months of age.

“The children who played with puzzles performed better than those who did not, on tasks that assessed their ability to rotate(旋转)and translate shapes,” Levine said in a statement.

The parents were asked to interact with their children as they normally would, and about half of children in the study played with puzzles at one time. Higher-income parents tended to have children play with puzzles more frequently, and both boys and girls who played with puzzles had better spatial skills. However, boys tended to play with more complex puzzles than girls, and the parents of boys provided more spatial language and were more active during puzzle play than parents of girls.

The findings were published in the journal Developmental Science.

In recent years, trampolining (蹦床) has become a new craze among Chinese youths. Short videos     1     (show) people's excitement about jumping back and forth on the colourful trampolines are regularly uploaded to social media. Most videos feature teenagers, but adults too have jumped on the trend, hoping to relive their childhood.

Compared with soccer, basketball, tennis or any other competitive sports,     2     various injuries occur from time to time, trampolining is relatively     3     (safe). However, preparation and safety always come first. You must do warm-up exercises before playing and you can't lose concentration during the movements.

10 . A hospital has been forced to ban Pokemon Go players from the site after a monster hub (妖怪枢纽站) was found in the A&E department. Royal Stoke University Hospital discovered that its casualty unit(急诊室) is on the same spot as a Pokemon Go ‘gym’ —— where players can train their newly caught Nintendo creatures.

The University Hospitals of North Midlands Trust agreed last week that patients can play Pokemon Go on wards because walking around is healthy. But the Trust has been forced to post a warning on its website about public access to A&E. It said if Pokemon Go becomes a major annoyance it would ask Nintendo—— which decides on the locations of the virtual gyms according using GPS——to have it removed from the premises(道馆).

Kevin Parker, associate chief nurse, said, “Members of the public who do not need to be at Royal Stoke should not attempt to enter A&E or any other part of the hospital building to play the game. The A&E department is incredibly busy this summer. We want the public to understand that anybody who visits the hospital solely to play the game will provide an unwanted distraction to the important work of the hospital. I’m also aware of various reports in the media of unsafe areas that the game has been played in.”

“Royal Stoke University Hospital is a safe area where gamers can enjoy Pokemon Go.” Michelle Harris, the Trust’s manager, said the game could still be played by those already in hospital. “We recognize that the Pokemon Go game encourages walking and exercise, which is something that the Trust is equally keen to promote,” she said.

There are a number of “walking routes” established throughout the Trust that can be used to combine walking and playing the game. “Walking just 30 minutes, five times a week, can help reduce the risk of preventable illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.”

There have been several warnings about the game since its UK release. Last week a group of teenagers in Wiltshire were left stranded almost 100ft underground after they got carried away searching for Pokemon Go characters. The four boys, aged 16 and 17, ended up getting lost and had to wait to get a phone signal before they could call for help. Eventually, they contacted Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue team, who took them to safety. Damien Bence, of the fire and rescue team, said: “Pokemon Go is obviously leading people into dangerous situations.”