1 . Coffee shops are banning laptops in a bid to stop freelance (自由职业的) workers from coming inside and taking up their tables.

Small businesses which used to offer free Wi-Fi in a bi d to attract customers into their shops are now changing the trend in a bid to improve service and social interaction. Many owners have complained that laptop and table t users are camping out on tables for hours on end without spending much money in store.

One such business, Society Cafe in Bath, made headlines last month and it put up posters asking people using their free Wi-Fi for work to be “considerate”. The store’s approach was widely praised on social media, with one user describing the request as “polite and to the point” and another calling it “more than reasonable”.

Dough Lover in Brighton has adopted a similar stance (立场), with a sign on the door declaring “This is laptop-free zone”. Its owner Ronke Arogundade told The Guardian that the approach was about “recovering the art of hospitality”. She added, “Without laptops, people have a natural time cycle — they drink their coffee, have some food, chat and leave. But when you open a computer you move beyond that natural cycle and lose touch with the environment around you. One woman got very angry, but another person was absolutely excited and asked me all about why we’re doing this.

Small Talk Tearooms, in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, has also banned all of its Wi-Fi, describing it as “anti-social”. Owner Chris told Gloucestershire Live, “We just can’t afford it. People turn up, buy one coffee, and spend all day sitting at the table using the Wi-Fi. We need customers coming in and out throughout the day to survive. We’re only a small business. That’s why we can understand the likes of Costa doing it, because they can afford it. We’re not against that, but we won’t have Wi-Fi here.

3 . At one time, our growing population was seen as central to wildlife extinction, resource exhaustion, pollution and environmental destruction. But today, our concerns shift to declining birth rates due to increased reproductive choice for women.

This is a positive development, but is often described as a “crisis” in the media, highlighting economic and senior care challenges. Lost in the conversation are the many positive aspects of an aging society, which is the result of people living healthier and longer lives, and common-sense realities like reduced needs for infrastructure (基础设施) and lower ecological impacts. Also lost is the fact that our population still grows by 80 million people every year.

And the consequences of high birth rates are severe. Among them is global warming. In fact, increased emissions (排放) from population growth have canceled more than three quarters of the emissions saved through energy efficiency and renewables over the past three decades.

Yet, no matter how well documented the link between population and climate, lowering our population is notably absent from the conversation on solutions. Instead, the focus is on technology that will supposedly allow our entire growing population to enjoy the energy-intensive lifestyles now enjoyed by the rich, and with no climate impacts.

But “green” technology is not the solution it is advertised to be. Its expansion to the degree needed to power a growing population at a decent standard of living would itself require a shocking investment in fossil (化石) fuels. It also requires massive mining operations, many of which take place on the backs of low-wage workers in Africa where it is driving destruction of rainforests critical to the survival of great apes. Besides, it requires 10 times the land area as fossil fuel plants for the same amount of energy generated.

When global warming threatens to push billions into unsafe temperatures, it is no time to panic that we are adding fewer to those billions. In fact, declining birth rates should be cause for celebration as they signify advances in gender equality and a reduced burden on Earth.

6 . Firms are increasingly investing their marketing dollars in social media — market research firms predict the spending will have reached $37 billion by the end of 2025.

However, increasing traffic and advertising income through strategic content scheduling is no easy task. A social media manager charged with posting 10 stories in one day with a budget to promote four of them can position the posts in more than 7 trillion ways. Most choose a “spray and pray” approach, by which they simply guess when a post will get the most attention.

New research from the University of Notre Dame shows digital content platforms can increase traffic to their websites from social media simply by matching their posting schedules with target audiences’ sleep-wake cycles.

“More specifically”, says Vamsi Kanuri, assistant professor of marketing, “consumers engage (参与) more with posts containing high-arousal negative information, including anger, stress, anxiety or fear, in the morning than in the afternoon or evening. They engage more with ‘boosted’ (paid to advertise) posts and those requiring higher cognitive (认知的) processing, such as scientific material in the afternoon.”

Simply adjusting posting schedules in accordance with target audiences’ sleep-wake cycles can increase engagement significantly, allowing firms to avoid spending more money on their special social media pages.

“There is an optimum point beyond which spending more money on boosting will only result in a small increase in total profits. Also, posting content too frequently or infrequently can hurt engagement rates. The best inter-post duration in our database t seems to be between 30 and 90 minutes. The team interviewed social media managers from several major content platforms to learn how they made posting decisions and examined a year’s worth of Facebook posting and boosting data (5,700 posts) from a major newspaper. They found managers relied on gut feelings (直觉) in making posting decisions but paid zero attention to what emotional posts might draw out from readers. Firms shouldn’t rely on the general rules-of-thumb posted on various blogs all over the Internet. Instead, they should make profit- maximizing content scheduling decisions by using precise science tools.

8 . I grew up hearing, “Figure it out, but don’t look it up.” I use this advice when I’m tempted (诱惑) to turn to a search engine for answers. Should all of us limit our use of technology?

Nicholas Carr, the author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, says that we should take some time away from screens. “Deep thinking happens only when our minds are calm and attentive.” It is difficult to focus while we are using the Internet. People tend to look up a question and end up skimming (浏览) through unrelated information. Some people might not even notice when they start mindlessly clicking.

In “Cognitive Offloading: How the Internet Is Changing the Human Brain”, Philip Perry describes a test that compared two groups. One group couldn’t use any sort of device to answer questions. The other group was allowed to use Google. The group that had access to their smartphones immediately looked up answers on the Internet. The group without smartphones were quicker at answering questions because they didn’t reach for their smartphones. While it’s true that the Internet gives us answers quickly and reliably, we may forget that we can get the answers so easily.

David Price, a guest blogger on a website, says that teaching may be getting easier with Google because parents can now use the Internet to help with their kids’ homework. This led me to think about our schooldays. When my class had a math test, most of us used calculators (计算器) at every opportunity even though everyone in that room was able to solve each problem. The Internet is like that because we know the answers to many questions we search for. We have to at least attempt to use our minds for problem-solving so we don’t forget how to do so. If we always turn to technology for answers, we’ll never learn anything on our own.

I understand that the problems with technology are only when it is used in a certain way, but it’s not the solution to every problem. The positives of technology don’t remove the negatives. It’s time to take a step back from technology and take a break from our devices.

10 . While beauty pageants (选美比赛) have been around for about 200 years, a first of its kind pageant has recently emerged — Miss AI, the world’s first beauty pageant for artificial intelligence-generated influencers and models.

Contestants will first be given points based on their beauty and tech. Beauty points are awarded like in every pageant, based on their conventional beauty and ability to answer questions maturely. However, it’s worth considering that all the models were specifically designed to meet or even exceed (超过) all modern day beauty standards so the category won’t be hard to score in. It’s the technical quality and realism of the model that are vital to win points, especially since AI is known to have little but noticeable flaws, like a sixth finger or extra teeth.

The consistency of contestants’ social media interaction with fans, as well as how they are using their platforms are also what earn them points in the social clout category. For example, Kenza Layli, the AI influencer topping the shortlist, fights to promote a society of empowered Moroccan women and was praised by the judges for her ability to tie a larger international audience to her cause, through her 196,000 followers on Instagram.

However, concerns have also arisen about such pageants.

When asked about his viewpoint on the significance of AI pageants, Kenza’s creator Rahul Choudhry commented: “AI is here to help humans, and Kenza’s purpose is to spread awareness. She has a celebrity-like quality because we noticed people tend to follow celebrities and join their causes.”

That celebrity-like quality does have other effects on audiences as well, such as envy and lower self-respect. Besides, real-life beauty pageants have been for decades criticized for their objectification and lack of body diversity, supporting poisonous beauty standards and misleading people in their perception of beauty. In the case of AI pageants, these issues only worsen because they are not real, making their appearance genuinely unattainable and damaging young women’s idea of beauty.