3 . In today’s digital era, social media users are increasingly coming across fake news online. This leads to the pressing issue: What causes people to fall for misinformation on the Internet?

According to researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology,   users can easily fall into an echo chamber (回声室)—a sort of virtual space where users consume only one-sided news, eventually distrusting any opposing views. “We all tend to agree with the group opinion. Hence, people naturally get together with others who hold the same opinion,” said Dongwon Lee, one of the researchers. “But if you’re not cautious, there is a high risk of falling into an echo chamber.”

To prevent this phenomenon, the researchers have crafted a novel tool, a game named ChamberBreaker, to help players resist echo chambers and reduce the rate of fake news spread. The fundamental approach employed by ChamberBreaker centers around a decision-making procedure that mirrors the creation of echo chambers. In ChamberBreaker, a player is tasked with trying to have community members fall into an echo chamber. To begin, the player is randomly assigned a situation that focuses on a health, political or environmental issue, and is presented with six pieces of news on that topic. Then, the player selects news that could cause the other members to fall into an echo chamber while at the same time maintaining their trust. If successful, the community members will fall into an echo chamber and the player will witness the resulting negative effects on the community.

After developing ChamberBreaker, researchers tested it with over 800 subjects to see if it raised awareness of echo chambers and changed news consumption behaviors. The researchers found that those who played ChamberBreaker were significantly more likely to state their intention to observe online information from more diverse perspectives and showed an increased awareness of the echo chamber phenomenon.

Ultimately, the researchers hope that their methodology can excite a greater interest in the scientific and scholarly study related to information consumption. The application of tools like ChamberBreaker, which focuses on fostering analytical reasoning, may lead us towards a more informed online community.

Nowadays, one of the common     1     (phenomenon) is to see ordinary people listening to music with headphones,     2     (absorb) themselves in their own world. Moreover, people often share     3     (satisfy) records with their friends. In     4     (add), we can gain relief from pressure in the deepest part of our being.

    5     is proved that music can be used as a cure     6     diseases. Listening to positive and peaceful music will have     7     positive impact on people, which enables many patients     8     (reduce) pain. Classical music has reached a stage     9     it is often used in cancer treatment     10     the aim of relieving aches and side effects.

6 . Media multitasking, such as scrolling through social media while watching a movie, may be linked to more brief failures in attention and difficulty remembering things.

“Our data support the idea that we should be aware of how we engage with media,” says Kevin Paul Madore at Stanford University in California. He and his team compared people’s self-reported levels of media multitasking with their performances in a memory task, as part of a study including 80 participants aged 18 to 26.

The researchers specifically tested episodic memory, which helps us recall events, by presenting the participants with images of objects on a computer and then later asking them to recall whether they had seen the objects earlier or not. At the same time, the team used EEG and eye tracking to monitor people’s attentiveness.

Madore and his colleagues also asked participants to complete a questionnaire to determine how often they engage in various forms of media multitasking, such as texting while watching TV or reading while listening to music. They found that people who reported more frequent media multitasking had more brief failures in attention during the memory task, which was associated with increased difficulties with remembering.

“I think conscious awareness of attentiveness and limiting potential distractions can go a long way in memory preparedness and reducing mind wandering or mind blanking,” says Madore. “Resisting media multitasking during school lectures or work zones, or limiting media multitasking to set times, could be valuable.”

“Media multitasking is becoming more prominent. We don’t actually know anything about the effects yet,” says Amy Orben at the University of Cambridge. It will be important to investigate whether media multitasking causes brief attentional failure and memory failure or whether there is another factor, such as how generally distractible a person is, that could explain the association. “This could be investigated through studies that monitor people over time and this is a really interesting area that we should explore,” she says.

7 . Experienced climbers of Mount Qomolangma are wondering if new proposed rules will solve the root causes of various deadly accident on the world’s tallest mountain. The proposals, if approved by the government of Nepal, would add steps to the permitting process for mountaineers as well as limitation to tourism companies to prevent the disaster in last May happening again.

Traditionally, Nepal has given climbing permits to anyone prepared to pay a fee of $11, 000. In 2019, the government approved a record high of 381 permits. With essential Sherpas and guides added, more than 800 people were trying to reach the peak during the short weather window. The overcrowding led to deadly delays in what is known as the “death zone”, the area above 8, 000 meters, and the death of eleven climbers eventually, many of them dying in late May after they were stuck there. It also raised suspicions that guide companies were urging inexperienced or incompetent mountaineers to attempt the climb.

To reduce the potential risks, among the suggested changes is a rule for those who want to climb the Mount to have a qualified doctor prepare a report on their medical history and general health. Another is that climbers provide evidence they have climbed another tall mountain in Nepal. They will also need to be accompanied by a trained Nepalese guide.

American mountaineer Ed Viesturs said the proposed changes will likely limit the amount of climbers able to plan journeys up the Mount, yet will not do enough to stop the “group think” mentality that led to the traffic jam in late May. He said climb leaders at base camp also needed to consider how to fix the problem. “I know several climbers who waited until later and had the mountain almost to themselves,” Viesturs said of the 2019 climbing season. “We really need to answer why so many people are there on the same day? How can you control it?”

8 . Two hundred years ago, the clock began to control the world of work. Paid on the basis of how many hours they worked, people rushed to and from work.

The clock’s power may at last be weakening. Flexible working existed well before the pandemic?(疫情). Now remote working has brought a greater degree of freedom. A survey of 4,700 home-workers across six countries conducted by Slack, a corporate-messaging firm, found that flexible working was viewed very positively, improving both people’s worksite balance and productivity. Flexible workers even scored more highly on a sense of belonging to their organization than those on a nine-to-five schedule.

It is hardly surprising that workers prefer flexibility. Working an eight-hour schedule is restricting. Those are also the hours when most shops are open, and when doctors will take appointments. Parents on a conventional routine may be able to take their children to school in the morning but are unlikely to be able to pick them up in the afternoon.

It is also not astonishing that home-workers feel they are more productive. After all, few people can concentrate for eight hours on end. There are points in the day where people feel like staring out of the window or going for a walk; these may be moments when they find inspiration or recharge themselves for the next task. When they do this in an office, they risk the boss’s disapproval; at home, they can work when they are most motivated.

What is striking about Slack’s study is the widespread support for home-working. Overall Just 12% of the workers surveyed wanted to return to a normal office schedule. In America black, Asian and Hispanic employees were even more enthusiastic than their white colleagues. Women with children were generally happy about it, reporting an improvement in their work-life balance.

Of course, the new schedule carries dangers: people may lose all separation between work and home life. To maintain some human contact, companies may adopt a mixed model in which workers go into the office for part of the week. But overall office-workers’ freedom is to be welcomed. The clock was a crud master and many people will be happy to escape its control.

9 . Two hundred years ago, the clock began to control the world of work. Paid on the basis of how many hours they worked, people rushed to and from work.

The clock’s power may at last be weakening. Flexible working existed well before the pandemic?(疫情). Now remote working has brought a greater degree of freedom. A survey of 4,700 home-workers across six countries conducted by Slack, a corporate-messaging firm, found that flexible working was viewed very positively, improving both people’s worksite balance and productivity. Flexible workers even scored more highly on a sense of belonging to their organization than those on a nine-to-five schedule.

It is hardly surprising that workers prefer flexibility. Working an eight-hour schedule is restricting. Those are also the hours when most shops are open, and when doctors will take appointments. Parents on a conventional routine may be able to take their children to school in the morning but are unlikely to be able to pick them up in the afternoon.

It is also not astonishing that home-workers feel they are more productive. After all, few people can concentrate for eight hours on end. There are points in the day where people feel like staring out of the window or going for a walk; these may be moments when they find inspiration or recharge themselves for the next task. When they do this in an office, they risk the boss’s disapproval; at home, they can work when they are most motivated.

What is striking about Slack’s study is the widespread support for home-working. Overall Just 12% of the workers surveyed wanted to return to a normal office schedule. In America black, Asian and Hispanic employees were even more enthusiastic than their white colleagues. Women with children were generally happy about it, reporting an improvement in their work-life balance.

Of course, the new schedule carries dangers: people may lose all separation between work and home life. To maintain some human contact, companies may adopt a mixed model in which workers go into the office for part of the week. But overall office-workers’ freedom is to be welcomed. The clock was a crud master and many people will be happy to escape its control.

10 . Two hundred years ago, the clock began to control the world of work. Paid on the basis of how many hours they worked, people rushed to and from work.

The clock’s power may at last be weakening. Flexible working existed well before the pandemic?(疫情). Now remote working has brought a greater degree of freedom. A survey of 4,700 home-workers across six countries conducted by Slack, a corporate-messaging firm, found that flexible working was viewed very positively, improving both people’s worksite balance and productivity. Flexible workers even scored more highly on a sense of belonging to their organization than those on a nine-to-five schedule.

It is hardly surprising that workers prefer flexibility. Working an eight-hour schedule is restricting. Those are also the hours when most shops are open, and when doctors will take appointments. Parents on a conventional routine may be able to take their children to school in the morning but are unlikely to be able to pick them up in the afternoon.

It is also not astonishing that home-workers feel they are more productive. After all, few people can concentrate for eight hours on end. There are points in the day where people feel like staring out of the window or going for a walk; these may be moments when they find inspiration or recharge themselves for the next task. When they do this in an office, they risk the boss’s disapproval; at home, they can work when they are most motivated.

What is striking about Slack’s study is the widespread support for home-working. Overall Just 12% of the workers surveyed wanted to return to a normal office schedule. In America black, Asian and Hispanic employees were even more enthusiastic than their white colleagues. Women with children were generally happy about it, reporting an improvement in their work-life balance.

Of course, the new schedule carries dangers: people may lose all separation between work and home life. To maintain some human contact, companies may adopt a mixed model in which workers go into the office for part of the week. But overall office-workers’ freedom is to be welcomed. The clock was a crud master and many people will be happy to escape its control.