1 . Twelve-year-old Catherine has a lot of friends—632, actually, if you count up her online friends. And she spends a lot of time with them.

But is it possible that Catherine’s online friendships could be making her lonely? That’s what some experts believe. Connecting online is a great way to stay in touch, they say. However, some experts worry that many kids are so busy connecting online that they might be missing out on true friendships.

Could this be true? During your parents’ childhoods, connecting with friends usually meant spending time with them in the flesh. Kids played Scrabble around a table, not words with friends on their phones. When friends missed each other, they picked up the telephone. Friends might even write letters to each other.

Today, most communication takes place online. A typical teen sends 2,000 texts a month and spends more than 44 hours per week in front of a screen. Much of this time is spent on social media platform.

In fact, in many ways, online communication can make friendships stronger. “There’s definitely a positive influence. Kids can stay in constant contact, which means they can share more of their feelings with each other,” says Katie Davis, co-author of The App Generation.

Other experts, however, warn that too much online communication can get in the way of forming deep friendships. “If we are constantly checking in with our virtual world, we will have little time for our real-world friendships,” says Larry Rosen, a professor at California State University. Rosen also worries that today’s kids might mistake the “friends” on the social media for true friends in life. However, in tough times, you don’t need anyone to like your picture or share your blogs. You need someone who will keep your secrets and hold your hand. You would like to talk face to face.

2 . China has set new rules limiting the amount of time children can play online games. The rules limit children to just three hours of online game playing a week. That is one hour between 8 p. m. and 9 p. m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday most weeks.

Li Zhanguo has two children aged 4 and 8. Even though they do not have smartphones, they enjoy playing online games. Like many other parents. Li is happy with new government rules. But experts say it is unclear if such policies can help prevent addiction to online games. Children might just get addicted to social media instead. In the end, experts say, parents should be the ones to set limits and support good practice.

There has been a growing concern in China about gaming addiction among children. Government reports in 2018 found that about one in ten Chinese children were addicted to the Internet. The new rules are part of an effort to prevent young people from spending too much time on unhealthy entertainment. That includes what officials call the “irrational fan culture”

Under the new rules, the responsibility for making sure children play only three hours a day as largely on Chinese gaming companies like Net Ease and Ten cent. Companies have set up real-name registration systems to prevent young users from going past game time limits. They have used facial recognition technology to check their identities. And they have also set up a program that permits people to report what is against the law. It is unclear what punishments gaming companies may face if they do not carry out the policies. And even if such policies are performed, it is also unclear whether they can prevent online addiction.

A specialist treating Internet addiction expects about 20 percent of children will find ways to break the rules by borrowing accounts of their older relatives and find a way around facial recognition. In his opinion, short-video alps such as Douyin and Kuaishou are also very popular in China. They are not under the same restrictions as games.

3 . Are you happy with your appearance?     1    

“Almost all the girls with single-fold eyelids (单眼皮) in our class have had double eyelid operations,” Zeng, a Senior 2 student from Chengdu, told Xinhua. Zeng had the same surgery done this summer.     2    

From popular photo-editing apps to plastic surgery (整形手术), it seems that large eyes, pale skin and a skinny body are the only standard for beauty these days. But can following this standard really make us feel good about ourselves?

    3     . According to Huxiu News, over six in ten girls choose not to take part in certain daily activities, such as attending school, because they feel bad about their looks. As much as 31 percent of teenagers avoid speaking up in class because they worry that others will notice their looks.

“Many teenagers are upset about their appearance because they believe in unrealistic standards of beauty,” experts say.       4     Seeing all these things can make anyone believe that they’re too dark, too fat, too short, or too tall.

However, trying to live up to strict standards can make us feel anxious. What troubles us is not just our “imperfect” looks, but the fact that we criticize ourselves too much.

    5     Plus-size models are being featured in some fashion shows. All of us should be just as confident as they are.

6 . Cloud computing is set to change how people communicate,work and learn.But do you know it may also affect how you are hired for a job in the future?

It was once more common for people to find jobs advertised in the newspaper and then physically send applications to organizations. Now we primarily look online using job sites and apply for those jobs using cloud recruitment (招聘) services.

However, many new technologies, with the help of artificial intelligence(AI),are changing recruitment and the way we communicate with those holding the key to our dream jobs.

AI recruitment technology, such as ENGAGE Talent, is making it easier for recruiters to find potential employees by analyzing networking sites, like LinkedIn, for appropriate candidates. Primarily based on keywords, circumstance changes or current company performance, it can find candidates that haven’t clearly expressed an interest in changing jobs. Helen Poitevin, research director of IT research firm Gartner, stated, “This method of finding a passive candidate is the subject of a lot of investment and innovation today.”

Another innovation designed to help recruiters is AI assistants, similar to Apple’s Siri. CNN reported that graduates in the future might have to be overseen by a virtual assistant before getting a real interview for highly competitive graduate programs.

Companies such as Hire Vue have already developed software that plays prerecorded questions for candidates and analyzes their responses for different factors, including grammar, facial expressions and tones. It can then produce a result that defines the candidate’s qualities and recommends whether they should be considered.

The US graduate Sarah Ali has been through eight Hire Vue interviews. She told CNN, “Once I understood the AI interview process, I started thinking of it as a game and how I could optimize (优化) myself.”

This interview process has yet become the mainstream outside the US, but with the power of cloud computing, how long will it be before this tech is used worldwide?

7 . The entire country struggled with the unprecedented heat of the July 2022 heatwave, but for the disabled, the heat hit even harder. The climate crisis is a threat to everyone’s health, but according to a report in 2021, people with disabilities are more delicate to the extreme weather events and natural disasters that result from the climate crisis.

Professor Kristie Ebi of the Centre for Health and the Global at the University of Washington, described the topic of heatwaves and disabled people as being an important issue. “Groups at higher risk during periods of high temperature include people with chronic (慢性的) medical conditions, people who take certain medications that can reduce the ability of the body to sweat, and the “disabled”, notes Ebi, going on to describe the different threats that heatwaves pose for different types of disabilities. Ebi notes the difficulty people with mobility issues or blindness may have with accessing services, such as cooling shelters, Ebi also comments on the importance of making messaging on the dangers of high temperatures accessible to those with learning disabilities or to deaf people. “Some studies suggest higher rates of suicide and other mental health issues during heatwaves, requiring targeted help for those with mental disabilities,” she added.

Ailsa Speak, a disability and lifestyle blogger, experiences uncontrollable movements in the heat due to her cerebral palsy (脑瘫). “As you can imagine, when my involuntary movements increase, I get even hotter. It’s just a painful circle really.”

In the absence of a concrete set of plans for people with disabilities during the climate crisis and extreme weather events, people with disabilities continue to be at increased risk of heat-related disease.

To prevent future death and destruction, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), an independent organization tackling climate change, advocates for adaptation planning, as the temperature is set to rise further due to the climate crisis and global warming. The CCC’s 2022 report on the health risks of overheating offers adaptation options to the government to ensure that buildings are fit for future climate change. Nevertheless, the publication does not offer specific advice about people with disabilities and overheating, which thus remains to be discussed promptly and thoroughly.

Nowadays, it is common that more and more high school students open their own microblogs on the Internet. For one thing, it can provide a colourful platform to show their talent. For     1    , it is a useful way to release their     2     (press). And all these make it more and more popular with high school students.     3     many parents and teachers hold a different view. They think that managing a microblog will take a lot of time and energy,     4     should be used to study.

I am     5     (great) in favour of this activity. Today the Internet     6     (play) an important role in our life. Therefore, as high school students of the Information Age, we need to learn to make use of this     7     (meaning) tool to communicate and display ourselves.

What’s more, opening and organising microblogs need various abilities such as writing, designing, being good     8     computer skills and so on. Only if we master those abilities can we make a successful microblog. As a result, we improve ourselves while     9     (organise) our microblogs.

In fact, the microblog itself is of little harm. It is your attitude towards it that     10     (matter). We should take advantage of it and avoid some bad effects.

9 . The hit movie Notting Hill begins with a famous scene. Hugh Grant bumps into Julia Roberts and spills orange juice all over her. After the collision, Grant repeatedly says, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

His actions in this scene are very British. If Roberts’ character were from the Britain, then she would probably apologize repeatedly as well — even if the crash was not her fault. But this doesn’t happen in the movie, as Roberts is from the US.

A report in The Telegraph once said that three quarters of British people apologize when they bump into someone in the street — regardless of whether they are responsible or not. In fact, Britons use “sorry” in many situations. For example, if they mishear someone, they say “Sorry?” The person they are talking to will also apologize by replying,“No,I am sorry!” This can go on for up to five minutes as if they were competing over who is the most sorry.

Why are Britons so sorry? Mark Tyrell, a psychology writer in the UK, thinks that their apologetic tendencies are rooted in British class system. “We say sorry because historically the new middle class in Britain had to apologize for not being the working class, but also for really being the upper class.” Another theory is that they apologize to avoid conflicts. For example, if they bump into someone, he might get angry. To avoid this, they instantly say “Sorry!”

True manners are about being considerate,and today’s constant use of apologizing shows that we are perhaps not as thoughtful as we once were.The word “sorry” has lost some of its meaning.

Do you see my point? Sorry, it might just be a British thing.

10 . Every festival has its own meaning. Labor Day, for example, celebrates the value of hard work. Thanksgiving is about showing thanks to people around you. And Valentines’ Day is a time when you express love to your loved ones. But somehow it now seems that all festivals we just care about one thing — shopping. And that can be a big problem.

“In a way, over-consumption (过度消费) is the mother of all our environmental problems,” Kalle Lasn once told CNN. Lasn is the organizer of Buy Nothing Day, a day set up in Canada in 1992 to fight against unhealthy spending habits, and has now become an international event. It’s held on the day, which is known as Black Friday — a famous shopping day in the US and Canada.

You can see the irony (讽刺) here.

Even though the idea of Buy Nothing Day was brought up 26 years ago, we seem to need it now more than ever. It’s just as Lasn said, all the different kinds of pollution in our lives today — bad air quality, the reduction of forest area, endangered animal species, and plastic bags found in the ocean — seem to be the same cause: over-consumption.

The latest example is the Singles’ Day shopping craze of Nov 11, which saw a new sales record. But as Nie Li, a campaigner at Greenpeace, told Reuters, “Record-setting over-consumption means record-setting waste.” And it was reported that last year the Singles’ Day packages left more than 160,000 tons of waste, including plastic and cardboard. The Collins Dictionary has also just named “single-use” its Word of the Year, pointing out the problem that there’re too many things we tow out after only using them once.

So, Buy Nothing Day might only be here for one day a year, but it’s not just to remind us to the a break from shopping on that day, but to change our lifestyle completely, focusing on fun “with people we care about” rather than wasting money on useless things.