1 . Does it ever seem like something is going on with our attention spans? Gloria Mark, an attention researcher at the university of California, says there is scientific evidence that attention spans have shrunk considerably. “We started studying attention span length over 20 years ago,” Mark said. “In 2003, we found that attention spans averaged about two-and-a-half minutes on any screen before people switched, In the past five, six years, they are averaging 47 seconds on the screen.”

Mark maintains that a shorter attention span has three downsides: The first is that people make more errors when they do attention shifting; second downside is that it takes longer to do something, because we have to adjust to every new task every time we shift; the third downside — maybe this is the worst of all — is that stress increases. When people are working on multiple tasks and they have to shift their attention, their blood pressure rises.

You don’t have to be a professor to guess at the cause of our great distract ability: It’s technology, of course-phones, social media, texting. It might be hard to think of the last time you even had a tech-free hour. So she offered a couple of tips for staying focused: First, when you feel the itch to change tasks, analyze why. If it’s just boredom or procrastination (拖延症), make a deal with yourself to work another 20 minutes, and then treat yourself to a reward.

Second, picture yourself at the end of the day. What do you want to have accomplished? What do you want to feel? “A concrete visualization of yourself sitting on the couch, you know, watching your favourite show is really good motivation,” she said.

The internet has this incredible resource available to us, so rather than be upset by it because it distracts us, how can we turn that around and instead find value from it? And how can we utilize our time best when we use the resources from the Internet without getting exhausted from it? These questions are what Gloria Mark will focus on in her subsequent research.

3 . Research from a UK charity has found that girls are likely to become less interested in sports as they move into their teenage years.

Women in Sport conducted a poll (调查) of more than 4,000 teenagers and found that 43 percent of girls felt they had been sporty as primary school students, but no longer saw themselves this way.

“Worryingly, girls lose their love of sport and exercise during teenage years, and this presents a significant psychological barrier throughout life,” the report said.

The majority of those who no longer considered themselves sporty said they had become less interested in sports because they didn’t like other people watching them.

The girls also spoke about how anxiety over their appearance led them to be less likely to participate in sports. The boys examined in this study didn’t show any change in their willingness to take part in sports. This points to a relationship between the mental well-being of girls and their willingness to engage in sports.

“It’s an absolute travesty (嘲讽) that teenage girls are being pushed out of sport at such a scale,” said Stephanie Hilborne, the chief executive of Women in Sport. She added that losing sports at this formative stage of their lives was equal to “a loss of joy as well as good lifelong health”.

“It is well documented that taking part in physical activity can have a profound and positive effect on mental well-being as well as provide many important life skills such as resilience (适应力), teamwork and communication,” she added.

The charity is calling on schools and sports clubs to increase the focus on keeping girls interested in sports, which can help them gain confidence when facing pressure from social media and their peers. Sports are crucial to keeping people active and social through puberty (青春期), which can already hit a young person’s self-confidence.

The number of children who are overweight is growing rapidly in China,     1     becomes a big concern for their parents. When it comes to the problem of obesity, the reasons are not far     2     (seek). One of the main factors that     3     for the problem is children’s love for junk food that adds too much fat and sugar     4     whoever takes it. For those who are particularly overweight, parents can set strict limits on what the children eat and cut     5     fat and sugar in the meal. Another factor is children’s lack of exercise in everyday life. Parents always find their kids     6    (lie) on the sofa rather than work out     7    (regular). To make matters worse, the fact that many children stay up late into night also contributes to the problem. Personally, I do believe     8     is of great importance to keep a     9     (balance) diet. What’s more, a healthy life style is the key to a happy life. After all, a healthy body and mind is     10     really matters.

8 . Food waste is a growing problem both in America and across the globe. In North America alone about 30-40% of food ends up as rubbish each year. While much ends up as rubbish, over 48 million Americans live in households that do not have enough food! Now, concerned citizens are trying to raise awareness of the issue with some creative ideas.

In New York’s Westchester County, students at 18 schools join in a program called We Future Cycle. Started by Anna and Ashley in 2014, it teaches kids to recycle, compost (堆肥), and most importantly control food waste in an easy and efficient manner.

Lunch areas at those schools are equipped with three clearly marked bins— compost, recycle and share. While the first two are common in schools, the third is rare. This is the bin where kids can put their unwanted drinks, fruits, and even untouched sandwiches. Food there is available for any student that wants them. Whatever remains at the end of the day is given to the local soup kitchen or food bank. Anna says the three bins have helped reduce the number of trash bags produced at the mid-day meal from an average of 22 to just 2!

To ensure kids form similar habits at home, the non-profit has created plans to educate families about the importance of sorting waste into the proper streams of recycling, composting, and food to donate. They also urge parents to have open conversations with their kids about food choices.

Kids are not the only ones that waste food. Adults are equally bad, if not worse! To fight that, Brooklyn-based Josh founded Salvage Super Club in 2014. The randomly organized dinners promise customers a multi-course meal for merely 50 dollars per person. The delicious food is made from perfectly safe ingredients (成分)   that are past their prime and, therefore, headed for the compost or trash bin.

9 . Slow Food is a global food network, founded in 1989 in Italy by food activist Carlo Petrini, which has grown to over 100,000 members across 153 countries, including 31 local branches within Australia. Slow food is good, clean and fair food. People who eat slow food believe that the food they eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment or our health; and that food producers should receive fair reward for their work.

Slow food movement has happened to fight against fast food and fast life, by encouraging us to revalue the time we spend in preparing, sharing, and consuming food. It aims to enhance the personal connection between food producers and consumers, and reduce our reliance on mass-produced foods purchased from supermarkets.

It also advocates for environmental agricultural techniques and encourages the reduction of food additives. Perhaps most importantly, it attempts to show how we can revalue the time we spend on food so as to spend quality food time for our personal (mental and physical) and collective (social, cultural, and environmental) benefits.

Slow Food guides us to take the time to enjoy one of life’s daily pleasures. There’s no doubt that cooking and eating in general is a lot more enjoyable for life when we’re not slaves of time. “Time” serves as a key factor for people’s interest in Slow Food as a form of reasonable consumption, but also a key challenge in terms of adopting a Slow Food lifestyle. And that’s why everybody is always in a hurry, because they don’t actually value that that’s an important thing to stop. Slowing down requires one to spend more time in educating oneself about food and then obtaining ethically produced food (放心食物).