1 . Hiring processes can be thought of as a battle between integrity and dishonesty. You might imagine this is a simple fight between truth-seeking firms and self-promoting candidates, and to a certain extent it is. But companies themselves are prone (有倾向的) to bend reality out of shape in ways that are self-defeating.

Start with the obvious wrongdoers: job applicants. When it comes to writing the resume (简历), they tend to massage (美化) reality into the most appealing shape possible. Everyone beyond a certain level of experience is a transformational leader personally responsible for generating millions income; the world economy would be about 15 times bigger than it actually is if all such claims were true. The average British spends four and a half hours a day watching TV and online videos. But each average job candidate is an enthusiast for public welfare, using their spare time only for worthy purposes, like volunteering in soup kitchens.

But the tendency to stretch the truth infects companies as well as applicants. The typical firm will write a job description that invariably describes the work environment as fast-paced and innovative, and then lays out a set of improbable requirements for the “ideal candidate”, someone who almost by definition does not exist. Sometimes, the requirements include an ability to go back and change the course of history.

Too few firms offer an accurate account of what a position actually involves in their job previews, which are supposed to give prospective employees a genuine sense of the negatives and positives of the job, as well as a clear idea of the company’s corporate culture. One effective strategy is to lay out in text or video, what a typical day in the role would look like.

Such honesty can be its own reward. Research has long suggested that realistic job previews lead to lower turnover and higher employee satisfaction. A paper in 2011 by David Eamest of Towson University and his co-authors concluded that favourable perceptions of the organisation’s honesty are the best explanation for why. So a process designed to uncover the truth about job applicants would run a lot more smoothly if firms were also honest about themselves.

2 . The rise of social media has revolutionized human connectivity, but its overuse can make people feel increasingly unhappy and isolated.     1    

One significant problem with frequent social media use is comparing ourselves to others. Many individuals experience “Facebook envy”.     2     Gradually, it may result in self-doubt. To boost self-confidence, it is essential to reduce time on others’profiles, and focus on self-reflection.

Social media can also make it hard to form real friendships. Constant online interaction may make us feel lonely and left out when we see others having fun online. Stina Sanders, a former model, explained “When I see my friend’s photos of a party I didn’t go to, it can make me feel quite lonely and anxious”.     3    

Quality sleep is essential for mental health, but excessive phone use before bedtime can severely disturb it. The anxiety and envy induced by social media content can keep our brains alert, making it challenging to fall asleep.     4     Avoiding the phone for at least 40 minutes to an hour before bed can improve sleep.

“     5     However, it can also change the way we recall our life. If we direct all of our attention trying to take the perfect photo, less will be available to enjoy other aspects of the experience in real time,” said Dr. Bono. To decrease these effects, practicing self-discipline and limiting phone use can help us to stay focused and clear-minded.

If you feel like social media is beginning to affect you, why not consider allocating less social media time? The slight change can do you a lot of good.

4 . We all know that men and women have their differences. But do they really think differently?     1     In my opinion, men and women still behave in the same way that they were designed to centuries ago. We have different interests, different ways of speaking, of showing how we feel, and of coping with stressful situations.

    2     This can have a negative effect on our relationships. We often become angry or frustrated with the opposite sex because we expect them to behave and communicate like we do. So why does a man behave as he does? Evidence suggests that men were programmed with the instinct to hunt silently for animals. They had to be able to focus their attention on one thing.     3     And also why he’s so good at reading maps and giving directions.

Women, on the other hand, are usually very good at doing several jobs at once.     4     In the past, women often worked in groups, which required a lot of communication, so they’re generally more talkative and sensitive to other people’s feelings.

Men and women seem to think differently too. Women usually score higher in writing tests. Men are seven times more likely to score in the top 5% in scientific exams. They’re often talented at problem-solving and making quick decisions.     5    

6 . How many people really suffer as a result of labour market problems? This is one of the most critical yet debatable social policy Questions.

In many ways, our social statistics overstate the degree of hardship. Unemployment does not have the same horrible consequences today as it did in the 1930s when most of the unemployed were primary breadwinners, when income and earnings were usually much closer to the margin of survival, and when there were fewer effective social programmes for those failing in the labour market. Increasing wealth, the rise of families with more than one wage earner, the growing dominance of secondary earners among the unemployed and improved social welfare protection have unquestionably relieved the consequences of joblessness. Earnings and income data also overestimate the scale of hardship. Among the millions with hourly earnings at or below the minimum wage level, the majority are from multiple-earner, relatively well-off families. Most of those counted by the poverty statistics are elderly or handicapped or have family responsibilities which keep them out of the labour force, so the poverty statistics are by no means an accurate indicator of labour market problems.

Yet there are also many ways our social statistics underestimate the degree of labour-market-related hardship. The unemployment counts exclude the millions of fully employed workers whose wages are so low that their families remain in poverty. Low wages and repeated or long-time unemployment frequently interact to weaken the capacity for self-support. Since the number experiencing joblessness at some time during the year is several times that unemployed in any month, those who suffer as a result of forced idleness can equal or exceed average annual unemployment, even though only a minority of the jobless in any month really suffer. For everyperson counted in the monthly unemployment records, there is another working part-time because of the inability to find full-time work, or else outside the labour force but wanting a job. Finally, income transfers in our country have always focused on the elderly, disabled, and dependent, neglecting the needs of the working poor, so that the dramatic expansion of cash and non-cash transfers does not necessarily mean that those failing in the labour market are adequately protected.

As a result of such conflicting evidence, it is uncertain whether those suffering seriously as a result of labour market problems number in the hundreds of thousands or the tens of millions, and, hence, whether high levels of joblessness can be tolerated or must be counteracted(抵消)by job creation and economic stimulation. There is only one area of agreement in this debate—that the existing poverty, employment, and earnings statistics are inadequate for one of their primary applications, measuring the consequences of labour market problems.

7 . The early World Wide Web would indeed revolutionize commerce, but it would do so in ways many did not fully anticipate in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the ease of setting up a website also led to a gold rush of fraud with knock-off domains impersonating banks, government agencies and household brand names. These problems persist to this day.

We can logically expect metaverse-influenced features and experiences to arrive at enterprises in much the same fashion. We’ve long known that security is a team sport, and no single vendor, product or technology can go it alone in protection. The culture of information-sharing and collaboration in the defender community today has been a monumental achievement that did not happen overnight. Today ISPs, cloud providers, device manufacturers — even industry rivals in these markets-recognize the need to work together on security issues.

It’s critical to align on key priorities to help secure the metaverse for generations — and identity, transparency and a continued sense of unity among defenders will be key.

For years cheaters have claimed to be abandoned princes with fortunes to share, or sweepstakes hosts desperately trying to reach you, but the emergence of email and text messaging re-franchised (重新授权) these schemes for the digital world in the metaverse, it won’t be a fake email from your bank. It could be an avatar (化身) of a teller in a virtual bank lobby asking for your information. It could be an impersonation of your CEO inviting you to a meeting in a malicious virtual conference room. This is why solving identity in the metaverse is a top concern. Organizations need to know that adopting metaverse-enabled Apps and experiences won’t change their identity and access control. This means we have to make identity manageable for enterprises in this new world.

Besides, there will be many providers of platforms and experiences in the metaverse, and mutual interactions can make the gaps seamless — while enabling exciting new scenarios. Think of bringing your virtual PowerPoint presentation into a client’s virtual meeting room, even if it’s operating on a different platform.

New platforms usually pose a tough challenge — that is often when security researchers really begin probing code, features and product claims. There must be clear and standard communication around terms of service, security features like where and how encryption is used, vulnerability reporting and updates.

The strides we’ve made across the tech industry in cooperating against threats as the crises have risen in recent years remain a cornerstone for security as metaverse platforms and experiences begin to shape the future.

Security researchers, chief information security officers and industry stakeholders also have an opportunity to understand the terrain of the metaverse as opponents do — and use it to our advantage. Metaverse platforms will likely create and generate entirely new data streams with the potential to improve authentication, locate suspect or malicious activity or even revisualize cybersecurity to help human analysts make decisions in the moment.

Let’s make the lessons we’ve learned about identity, transparency and the security community’s powerful collaboration our top ideals to enable this next wave of technology to reach its full potential.

8 . In the second half of the twentieth century, many countries of the South (发展中国家) began to send students to the industrialized countries for further education. They urgently needed supplies of highly trained personnel to implement a concept of development based on modernization. But many of these students decided to stay on in the developed countries when they had finished their training. At the same time, many professionals who did return home but no longer felt at ease there also decided to go back to the countries where they had studied.

In the 1960s, some Latin American countries tried to solve this problem by setting up special “return” programmes to encourage their professionals to come back home. These programmes received support from international bodies such as the International Organization for Migration, which in 1974 enabled over 1, 600 qualified scientists and technicians to return to Latin America.

In the 1980s and 1990s, “temporary return” programmes were set up in order to make the best use of trained personnel occupying strategic positions in the developed countries. This gave rise to the United Nations Development Programme’s Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate (移居国外的) Nationals, which encourages technicians and scientists to work in their own countries for short periods. But the brain drain (人才流失) from these countries may well increase in response to the new laws of the international market in knowledge.

Recent studies forecast that the most developed countries are going to need more and more highly qualified professionals around twice as many as their educational systems will be able to produce, or so it is thought. As a result, there is an urgent need for developing countries which send students abroad to give preference to fields where they need competent people to give muscle to their own institutions, instead of encouraging the training of people who may not come back because there are no professional outlets for them. And the countries of the South must not be content with institutional structures that simply take back professionals sent abroad, they must introduce flexible administrative procedures to encourage them to return. If they do not do this, the brain drain is bound to continue.

10 . At some point in the stretch of days between the start of the pandemic’s third year and the feared launch of World War III, a new phrase unfolded itself before us, a mysterious foretell of an age to come: people were going “goblin mode”.

The term embraces the comforts of depravity(堕落): spending the day in bed scrolling endlessly through social media; pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth; leaving the house in your pajamas and socks only to get a single Diet Coke from the store.

First appearing on Twitter as early as 2009, “goblin mode” represents a direct departure from the “cottagecore” influence of early pandemic days, a standout trend of 2020 that thrived under the wistful ethos of making the best of what many people assumed would be only a few boring weeks at home in 2020.

But as the pandemic wears on endlessly, and the chaos of current events worsens, people feel cheated by the system and have rejected such goals. “The trend sets an unrealistic standard for people to think that if they aren’t waking up early to exercise, their lives are not put together”, one blog indicting “cottagecore” culture reads.

Most people tweeting about goblin mode characterize it as an almost spiritual-level embrace of our most debased tendencies and call it a logical progression into nihilism(虚无主义)after years of disappointment. However, Marnell, an author who has been tweeting extensively in recent weeks about entering goblin mode, says there is “healthy goblin mode and destructive goblin mode”. For her, it represents a certain air of harmless mischief. “It is cool to be a goblin,” Marnell says. “Everyone is so perfect all the time online, it is good to get in touch with the strange little creature that lives inside you.”