1 . Are you always looking at your mobile phone as you’re walking, playing with it as you’re studying, and reluctant to put it down as you go to bed? Tired of a life controlled by their mobile phones, many young people seem to be intent on working out how to overcome it.

One of the popular gadgets is the mobile phone isolation box. Users simply put their mobile phone in the box and set a time lock that will ban them from having access to the phone for a set time. Some boxes allow users to respond to emergencies. These isolation boxes can be adapted to almost all types of mobile phones on the market. The locking time generally ranges from one minute to 12 hours, and the price is generally about 100-200 Yuan. Xianfeng Technology, one of the sellers on Taobao says: “Our main customers are students and office workers. They usually ask for engraving some inspirational quotes on the box when buying. Some parents who feel their children are wasting time on Douyin and ruining their studies are also buying them. This physical box is much better than software on phones.” Xianfeng’s after-sales comment section is filled with positive comment from buyers who say the box has helped them become more self-disciplined.

However, Lin Tianqi, a college student says, because the lock time is set by users, whether they can achieve their goal depends on the individual. A five-hour lockup is too harsh, she says, but one of her friends locks the box for just 30 minutes, she seems to delude herself. Liang Wenyu, another college student, sneers at these “flashy” attempts. “Regardless of the effectiveness of the isolation box, you might as well lock yourself up. As simple as that.” he says. “I can understand why they need these blood pumping quotes on the box—because they lack discipline. How about simply taking back your time. Self-disciplined people are bound to succeed without such gimmicks.”

2 . Have you gotten price shock lately when you looked at the cost of a new car? It’s not your imagination .The average price of a new car is the highest ever for the first quarter, according to CNBC. At $33, 319, the price is about $1,000 more than in 2018. Because of that, new car sales dropped by as many as 2.5 million units compared to the same quarter last year.

You’d think the drop might concern car makers, but as it turns out, the increase of the price reflects a choice. Many carmakers are stopping producing less expensive cars in favor of SUVS and pickup trucks, which bring in bigger profits(利润).

“Carmakers always say they build what people want.” The Wall Street Journal reporter Dan Neil said. “But they never mention the fact that they spend billions telling people what they want. It wasn’t that consumers wanted to have a truck that was as big as a house. No, that was a gradual process. And it has been mainly pushed by carmakers because bigger equals more profits.”

In late 2018, Ford announced it was gradually stopping producing its Fiesta, Focus, and C-max models in the United States while continuing to make the Mustang and Focus Active. Other big carmakers did the same, with General Motors ending production of the Chevy Volt, Cruz, Impala, Buick Lacrosse. Cadillac XTS, and Cadillac CT6 in the United States. And Fiat Chrysler is putting the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 to an end. “I can tell you right now that both the Chrysler 200 and the Dodge Dart, as great products as they were, are the least financially rewarding business that we’ve carried out in the last eight years,” said Fiat Chrysler CEO.

So where does that leave consumers? Well, if you’re in the market for an SUV or a top-of-the-line pickup truck, you can expect better features. But if you’re looking for a smaller, less expensive car you might be squeezed (挤)out of the market. More and more buyers are likely to look to used cars instead. But before car shopping, make sure you know the secrets car dealers don’t want to tell you.

5 . The world of work is changing. Are people ready for the new jobs? A survey of 15-year-olds across 41 countries by the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries, found that teenagers may have unrealistic expectations(期望) about the kind of work that will be available.

Four of the five most popular choices were common professional roles: doctors, teachers, business managers and lawyers, which generally have existed for a long time. Teenagers gathered around the most popular Jobs, with the top ten being chosen by 47% of boys and 53% of girls. Those shares were much higher than when the survey was conducted in 2000.

Teenagers can hardly be expected to have an indepth knowledge of the details of the job market. They have seen doctors and teachers in their daily lives. Other popular professions, such as lawyers and police officers, will be familiar from films and social media. But many people end up in jobs they have not heard of in their school years, and they settle for what is available.

The OECD points out that some of the fastest growing jobs are hardly mentioned by young people. Unsurprisingly, "user support technician " is placed only 158th out of 543 professions and computer user support specialist "appears in 229th place. Rather, it is shocking that young people do know that such jobs exist.

Besides, teenagers who want to deal with climate change are in luck. America's Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that the two fastest-growing jobs over the next few years will be solar-photovoltaic installers(太阳能光伏安装人员) and wind-turbine technicians(风力涡轮机技术人员).

Some parts of the OECD survey are worrying. Even though top performers in maths or science are equally matched among boys and girls, more boys than girls expect to work in science or engineering -- the average gap across the OECD is more than ten percentage points.

6 . Many of us write a list of things we'd like to do before we die—often called a bucket list. Bucket lists have helped some people overcome anxiety which would have stopped them following their dreams. Some of us may choose to write one to fill our life with exciting and new experiences—from skydiving to swimming with sharks—the list is unlimited.

A blogger called Annette White said she made a promise to live her bucket list which continuously pushes the comfort zone to its limits and beyond it. Such a list can be exciting and can indeed help you plan your life and give you focus. When the BBC reporter Helen Fawkes knew she was suffering from incurable ovarian(卵巢的)cancer, she took comfort in drawing up a bucket list——although she called it her “list for living” because these were things for making the most of life. Sadly, she was not able to achieve all of her 50 things before she died at the age of 45.

Creating a bucket list can certainly give us hope, but some people have argued it can be used as a coping strategy to try to control something uncontrollable—death Clinical psychologist Linda Blair told the BBC that she was not really in favor of bucket lists ... “They take you away from the chance to be spontaneous(自发的).” It's probably true that a list can encourage people to follow someone else's idea of the perfect life. And also, following a fixed list of goals makes you less impulsive(冲动的)— your aims and wishes might change as you approach the day when you finally kick the bucket.

But why not at least dream of what we would like to do? Why not reach for the stars, even if we only reach the sky? Whether we want to plan it or just see what happens, we don't know what tomorrow will bring, so maybe we should live for today.

Smartphones are an     1     (importance) part of everyday life to most teens today. But are teens addicted to their phones? One out of every two teens in the US and Japan feel they are, according to     2     recent study. 

The study     3     (base) on an April 2017 survey of 1,200 parents and teens. It’s the first such study in Japan,     4     90 percent of parents and teens own smartphones. It’s also the first     5     (compare) those results with     6     (exist) US data from Common Sense Media about digital media use among families in North America. 

Most parents surveyed said     7     (their) believed their teens were addicted to mobile devices. Many of the     8     (adult) said they also felt addicted to their own phones.

Willow Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg in Los Angeles, said, “These shifts are happening     9     (fast) and more dramatically than any change     10     recent history.”