1 . Almost half a billion small, cheap electrical everyday items from headphones to handheld fans ended up in landfill in the UK in the past year, according to research.

The not-for-profit organization Material Focus, which conducted the research, said the scale of the issue was huge and they wanted to encourage more recycling.

More than half a billion cheaply priced electronic goods were bought in the UK in the past year alone - 16 per second. Material Focus findings showed that of these items, 471m were thrown away. This included 260m disposable vapes, 26m cables, 29m LED, solar and decorative lights, 9.8m USB sticks, and 4.8m miniature fans.

Scott Butler, executive director at Material Focus, described it as “fast tech“. He said, “People should think carefully about buying some of the more frivolous items in the first place.” He said the items people bought were often “cheap and small”, and that consumers may not realize they contain valuable materials that could be salvaged if recycled.

Small electricals can contain precious materials including copper, lithium and stainless steel. These components can be recycled and used in wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. Material Focus said that while people were used to the idea of recycling larger electrical items such as fridges, lots of smaller devices were left unused in houses.

Butler said, “We want to get the message across that anything with a plug, battery or cable can be recycled and there’s somewhere near you to do it. The scale of the issue is huge, but there’s an easy solution-just as the trend for recycling and repurposing fashion has grown and grown, we want to encourage the nation to recycle fast tech, guilt-free and fuss-free.”

Material Focus said that when consumers bought a cheap item, they saw it as disposable. They estimate that UK citizens spent more than f2.8bn on these cheap products in the past year. The non-profit group described it as“the tip of the iceberg”when it comes to the growing issue of wasted electricals in the UK. More than 100,000 tonnes of waste electricals are thrown away every year, and there are 880m electrical items of all kinds lying unused in UK homes.

In one club in Beijing, for example, players enter into a fictional martial arts school     1     they wear costumes and assume roles like a peach fairy or a dragon. The script offers character backgrounds, relationships and potential storylines. The plot develops as the players go around the table, talking in character, taking clues from the script and the host. In the end, they vote on     2     they think the murderer might be.

The whodunits may be imaginary,     3     they provide a real-world alternative for young Chinese people who spend increasing amounts of time on their screens. The country’s one billion Internet users spend much of their time on their phones,     4     (cause) worries from the public and the government alike about too much screen time. The government’s concerns over children in particular     5     (lead) it to restrict video game time for minors recently.

The games also provide free-flowing opportunities for young people to get together, something     6     can be rare in China, according to Kecheng Fang, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The games provide “    7     participatory experience and a way of socializing, which is     8     (miss) from the life of many Chinese young people,” Dr. Fang said. They are     9     (lack) in participation in civic affairs, community     10     (engage) and meaningful socialization.

6 . It was something rather irregular at an otherwise regular board of appeals meeting in Maine. A resident wanted a permission for not observing the no-chicken rule. But this wasn’t just any resident. It was C-Jay Martin, 25, who is blind and has epilepsy (癫痫) and autism. Chickens are what brought C-Jay joy despite his challenges. “Having something to share with other people was important to him,” said his mother, Amy Martin.

But Bangor is not OK with chickens. In fact, city rules clearly prohibit residents from keeping “fowl, goats, sheep, cattle or swine of any kind” and the municipal government urges the residents to obey the rules strictly. So, would the staid New England city of 31,000 make an exception for C-Jay and his emotional support hens?

It was with high hopes that Martin headed to the otherwise ordinary municipal meeting earlier this month. She told the appeals board she got the chickens in April after researching the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in housing by landlords or municipalities, and finding it might allow her son an accommodation.

She was joined by neighbors and community members who showed up to support C-Jay and his chickens. One noted C-Jay regularly assumes the responsibility of feeding the chickens, despite his disabilities. Another said their cooing and soft noises are clearly a comfort to C-Jay. Others said Martin and C-Jay keep the chickens’ area in their yard very clean.

But there were some complaints. Some raised concerns about whether the presence of the chickens could attract rodents (齿类动物), and didn’t want an exception for C-Jay to open the door for others to keep banned animals.

City officials, seeming to side with C-Jay and his flock, assured attendees that no increased rodent activity would not be tolerated and any livestock permission would only apply to C-Jay Martin at his house.

In the end, it reached a consensus: the appeals board ruled that C-Jay had a need for the chickens. He would be allowed to keep them, although limits on the number were set, and noisy roosters prohibited.

Martin said her son is relieved and that his beloved chickens will stay. “When he’s sitting outside listening to an audiobook, or just hanging out in the backyard with the sun shining, he always knows where they are because he can hear them,” she said. “He’s never really alone.”

8 . You’re passed over for a job. Your back aches. Faced with difficulties large and small, you wonder if you’re an unlucky person. We turned to experts to understand why we believe in luck and how we can have that belief to make changes in our attitude towards life.

Richard Wiseman, a psychology professor, doesn’t believe there’s anything magical about luck — it won’t help you or hurt you. “On the other hand, considering yourself lucky or unlucky is a way of seeing yourself, which has an impact on how you behave and how you think, and becomes a self-fulfilling anticipation,” he says. “So, in a sense, it absolutely does exist.”

The sociology lecturer Vik Loveday interviewed academic employees who were on temporary contracts, an uncertain situation that caused anxiety. In general, when one of these academics learned about good news concerning their careers, such as getting a permanent job, they would attribute it to luck. Because they felt they had so little control, a move in a positive direction happened almost by accident, rather than as the result of hard work.

In a 2021 study, Professor Woolley has looked at this idea in children and adulthood. For example, basketball player Michael Jordan would wear his college practice shorts under his National Basketball Association uniform for good luck. “Obviously, it’s that the superstitious (迷信的) custom gives him confidence and then he plays better,” Woolley says.

Is it possible to change your attitude towards luck to get better outcomes? Wiseman believes some steps can improve your luck. He has found “lucky people not only maximize opportunities and know where they’re heading, but often they change course depending on how the wind is going”. Lucky people can also transform bad experiences to good. Specifically, you can shift your focus towards the positive by keeping a “luck diary”. Also don’t be a creature of habit. Watch a different TV program, speak to different people — even small shifts can be effective.

10 . Since the early to mid-2010s, social media apps have made a permanent home in many people’s phones, and spending time on social media has become as much of a daily activity as drinking water. Since so many people are on it for much of their days — especially kids, teens, and young adults — there is increased concern over what social media is doing to people.

Many argue that social media is an unhealthy way to pass the time, and that false information from online is causing confusion and panic. This type of thing happens with every generation when something new that people don’t understand comes along. So many people thought rock-and-roll was making teens morally bad, which really wasn’t the case. It is fair to say that the teenage years are hard, and that teens need an escape. Back before phones, teens would listen to rock music as a form of escapism, or they would watch TV, go to the movies, skate around, or dress up in crazy clothes. Unfortunately, all of those things at one point in time were blamed for being a bad influence on young people. Social media is the new tuck-and-roll: it’s a new thing, and people demonize (妖魔化) change.

For example, many believe that everything on social media apps is filtered (加滤镜) and that seeing perfect people and their perfectly edited lives often leads to lots of negative emotions. However, models, magazines and movies have been using retouching (修整) tools for photos and media since Photoshop and other post-production services were invented. Social media has made it easier to see more edited pictures, but social media itself isn’t making people want to look a certain way. People should acknowledge that these pictures aren’t authentic, and the posts are made to look good on purpose. Social media is hot to blame for body confidence issues when the things people want to look like aren’t even real in the first place.

It seems like most issues around social media are user errors, like anyone complaining there are too many people being addicted to social media. However, not everyone is addicted to social media; people who have any grasp on reality wouldn’t spend every waking second on the phone. It is really up to the individual how they use social media. Keeping up with the flood of posts, stories, and photos takes a lot of time — many young people admit that they spend hours on their phones every day. Yet, this seems like an easy problem to solve when the solution is simply clicking off the phone a couple hours early. So it is clear that moderation is the key to dealing with all the issues around social media.