3 . In an age filled with texting and messaging apps, phone calls seem to be becoming a relic of the past, particularly among younger generations. A recent survey by Sky highlights the change, suggesting that avoiding phone calls isn’t just a preference; it’s a reflection of anxiety.

This anxiety is not entirely new. Traditional forms of speaking can cause a release of oxytocin (催产素), which helps reduce social anxiety. However, in the absence of physical gestures and the comfort of a known audience, phone calls can increase these anxieties, making the experience feel more serious.

Phone conversations can be embarrassing due to the lack of body language. In face-to-face communications, we rely heavily on gestures, facial expressions, and body language to understand messages, which are absent in phone conversations. This can lead to misunderstandings and a feeling of disconnection. Besides, the pressure to respond immediately without the time to think, as afforded by messaging apps, can increase the anxiety connected with phone calls.

Although they may cause discomfort, phone conversations are an important skill. In the professional world, the ability to communicate effectively over the phone remains a skill of great value. Therefore, it’s a must to teach younger generations, including Gen Z, the art of phone conversation, not just for professional success but also for developing personal relationships.

Moreover, adding emotions to communications improves memorability. Phone conversations, with their immediate and personal nature, can produce a deeper emotional connection than text-based communication.

While it’s understandable why phone calls can feel uncomfortable in today’s digital age, it’s important to recognize the value they hold in effective communication and relationship building. As we reduce this “phone anxiety”, it matters to encourage and learn the art of phone conversation, balancing the ease of messaging with the depth of a real-time voice call. This balance is key to keeping healthy, meaningful relationships and ensuring personal and professional growth in an increasingly digital world.

4 . There are many differences in ways of thinking between East and West. Many of them are reflected in daily behaviour. In particular, Chinese people sometimes attach more importance to their appearance and social status than to their inner qualities, while Westerners think the opposite. However, Socrates (Ancient Greek philosopher) and Confucius share significant similarities that are universal.

Both philosophers share several teachings in common; for example, their understanding of the nature of knowledge and their opinions on education. Socrates believed “There is only one good, knowledge;and only one evil, ignorance.” Similarly, Confucius said, “Isn’t it a pleasure to study and practice what you have learned?” But both also acknowledge the limits of knowledge. Socrates said: “All I know is that I know nothing.” Similarly, Confucius said, “When you know a thing, to hold you know it; when you don’t know a thing, to allow you don’t know it-this is knowledge.”

However, there are important differences in their understanding of morality. Confucius believed each person should follow certain regulations according to virtue(德行). Everyone should play their role in a society where people are interdependent in order to achieve harmony in the whole society. For instance, when asked how to govern a country, Confucius stated “An emperor should act like an emperor, a subject should act like a subject.” Socrates, however, places self-knowledge over social knowledge.

Another difference between them is their attitude towards political domination(支配). Confucius believed the best way to govern a country isn’t through legal system, but through virtue. Socrates, by contrast, declared that “nothing is more important than justice”.

Why have East and West developed such different cultural values? A widely accepted theory holds that Eastern civilization was an agricultural civilization. Hence the need for a collective society and friendly relations with neighbors was strong. Western civilization, however, was nomadic(游牧的). Their mobility makes them less dependent on society after migration.

In spite of their differences, the two cultures have more in common than differences. The shared concern for moral values in the teachings of Socrates and Confucius also shows us more fundamental similarities between Eastern and Western cultures in their pursuit of virtuous lives.

5 . When we open a news app, we’ll notice that every second, we are presented with so much information that our brain just can’t keep it. The matter is made worse by our belief in “multi-tasking” which is, more often than not, simply another term for divided attention.     1     Understanding our limit allows us to fix it. So, here are three tips to give ourselves the peace we really need.

Control the information flow

Set up a new account on social media and follow only accounts or people that are really valuable.     2    . It’s much better to have a few healthy meals that fill you up, than eating fast food throughout the day.

    3    

It is unnecessary to throw away the phone but do give ourselves a time limit, Say, “I will only use this app for 20 minutes” or “I will only read this magazine after dinner.”

Acknowledge our limits

We’ll never read all the news. We’ll never read all the “must-read” articles.     4    . Don’t beat ourselves up that we’re being unproductive or we’re missing out. We’re getting more out of those few than that “super-productive“ person on social media who says they read five books a week.     5    

6 . Survivor bias (偏见，偏差), occurs when you tend to assess successful outcomes and disregard failures. This sampling bias paints a more promising or even misleading picture of reality.

Survivor bias is a sneaky problem that tends to slip into analyses unnoticed. For starters, it feels natural to emphasize success, whether it’s entrepreneurs, or survivors of a medical condition. We focus on and share these stories more than the failures.

Think about the famous college dropouts who became highly successful, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates. These successful examples might make you think a college degree isn’t beneficial. However, that’s survivor bias at work! These famous individuals are at the forefront of media reports. You hear more about them because they are extraordinary. You’re not considering the millions of other college dropouts that aren’t rich and famous. You need to assess their outcomes as well.

Survivor bias has even occurred in medical studies about severe diseases. Younger, healthier, and more fit patients tend to survive a disease’s initial diagnosis more frequently. Hence, they are more likely to join medical studies. On the contrary, older, weaker patients are less likely to survive long enough to participate in studies. Consequently, these studies overestimate successful disease outcomes because they are less likely to include those who die shortly after diagnosis.

Undeniably, successful cases are usually more visible and easier to contact than unsuccessful cases. However, focusing on the high-performing successes and disregarding other cases introduces survivor bias. After all, you’re leaving out a significant part of the picture as it’s harder to collect data from the less successful members of a population. Incomplete data can affect your decision-making process. Put simply, survivor bias produces an inaccurate sample, causing you to jump to incorrect conclusions.

To minimize the impact of survivor bias, you should find ways to draw a representative sample from the population, not just a few of successful samples. That process might call for more expense and effort, but you’ll get better results.

9 . A small town in western France has gone viral for marking a busy crossroads with overlapping (重叠的) white lines in order to confuse motorists and make them slow down.

The town of Bauné, near Angers, is home to only about 1,700 people, but it has to deal with heavy traffic on a daily basis because of its location at the crossroads between two departmental roads — D74 and D82. Some of the roughly 2,300 vehicles that pass through Bauné every day can have speeds of over 100 km/h, even though the town’s crossroads is clearly marked with signs limiting the speed at 30 km/h. In order to get drivers to slow down, local authorities came up with the idea of using confusing road markings in the form of overlapping continuous lines. Interestingly enough, the strategy worked like a charm!

Photos of the odd road markings on the busy crossroads of Bauné went viral on French social media recently and left a lot of people scratching (抓) their heads. Many people have pointed out that a continuous white line is impassable (不可通行的), so having the lines overlap and cover the entire square doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Others simply wondered why the local authorities didn’t use more traditional means of decreasing vehicle speed, like a roundabout (环形交叉路口) or traffic lights.

According to Grégoire Jauneault, deputy mayor of Loire-Authion and the person in charge of local development, the deliberately confusing road markings started working on the day they were completed, with data showing a significant decrease in motorists’ speeds. However, a part of the local community predicted that the result was only temporary and that as soon as motorists figured out the game, they would go right back to their speeding ways.

10 . Nowadays, people are increasingly interacting with others in social media environments where algorithms control the flow of social information they see. People’s interactions with online algorithms may affect how they learn from others, with negative consequences including social misperceptions, conflict and the spread of misinformation.

On social media platforms, algorithms are mainly designed to amplify (放大) information that sustains engagement, meaning they keep people clicking on content and coming back to the platforms. There is evidence suggesting that a side effect of this design is that algorithms amplify information people are strongly biased (偏向的) to learn from. We call this information “PRIME”, for prestigious, in-group, moral and emotional information.

In our evolutionary past, biases to learn from PRIME information were very advantageous: Learning from prestigious individuals is efficient because these people are successful and their behavior can be copied. Paying attention to people who violate moral norms is important because punishing them helps the community maintain cooperation. But what happens when PRIME information becomes amplified by algorithms and some people exploit (利用) algorithm amplification to promote themselves? Prestige becomes a poor signal of success because people can fake prestige on social media. News become filled with negative and moral information so that there is conflict rather than cooperation.

The interaction of human psychology and algorithm amplification leads to disfunction because social learning supports cooperation and problem-solving, but social media algorithms are designed to increase engagement. We call it functional mismatch. One of the key outcomes of functional mismatch is that people start to form incorrect perceptions of their social world, which often occurs in the field of politics. Recent research suggests that when algorithms selectively amplify more extreme political views, people begin to think that their political in-group and out-group are more sharply divided than they really are. Such “false polarization” might be an important source of greater political conflict.

So what’s next? A key question is what can be done to make algorithms facilitate accurate human social learning rather than exploit social learning biases. Some research team is working on new algorithm designs that increase engagement while also punishing PRIME information. This may maintain user activity that social media platforms seek, but also make people’s social perceptions more accurate.