2 . How to deal with decision paralysis (瘫痪)

If you’ve ever gone online to order something during a work break-let’s say a new electric toothbrush-expecting it to be fairly easy, but instead you found yourself overwhelmed by the huge number of choices available, you’ve experienced decision paralysis.

You’re shocked that there are so many factors to consider; not only the basics, such as price and delivery time, but there are many other factors like battery duration, warning lights for too much pressure and even fancy apps.     1    

This is just one example of decision paralysis-when the huge number of choices and the difficulty of weighing the supermarket up-leads you to freeze. It used to be thought that increased choice could only be a good thing for consumers and they would welcome it, but actually it can bring the opposite effect and cause people to walk away.     2     Perhaps you only have two or three choices, but the risk of making the wrong decision can be paralysing, such as choosing between university places and job offers.

    3     One is to recognise that there is rarely any such thing as the perfect decision. Another is to acknowledge that not making a decision is actually a decision-so don’t kid yourself that endlessly procrastinating(拖延)is the easy solution.

If you’re willing to put in the effort, a practical approach is to reduce the mental complexity involved in a decision by doing a little research.     4     In the case of the toothbrush, this might be price first and then battery duration; in the case of choosing a university it might be fame first, then friends who are also planning to study there, and lastly the distance to home. Score the available choices against those factors, giving greater weight to those that are higher priority.     5    

3 . The World Health Organisation has produced a report predicting that 9.8 billion of us will be living on this planet by 2050. Of that number,72 percent will be living in urban areas. Presented with this information, governments have a duty to consider how best to meet the needs of city residents.

Take New York City, a place where I frequently meet up with other researchers in my field. Luckily for me, I do not need to navigate the crowded streets. Admittedly my experience of the urban lifestyle here is limited to the hotels I stay in, and the blocks within a three-kilometre walk. But whenever I leave my room in search of a store providing fruit or anything with nutritional value, none can be found. New York has made great advances in redeveloping its museums and arts centres, but authorities must recognise that people’s basic needs must be met first.

Sometimes these basic needs are misunderstood. In some urban areas, new residential developments are provided with security features such as massive metal fences in the belief that these will make residents safer. There is little evidence that such steps make a difference, but we do know they make residents feel unwilling to go outside and walk around their neighbourhood. This adds up to a feeling of being cut off from others.

So where are planners and developers going wrong? Inviting a group of locals to attend a consultation event is the conventional method for discovering what a community might want. The issue here is that it often attracts the same few voices with the same few wishes. Successful development is taking place in many urban areas around the world. There is no better way for city planners to do this than to visit these places in person.

5 . In the rush of day-to-day life, we don’t always have the time to slow down and move at our own speed. Even on vacation, we always try to visit, do and taste as many things as possible in a new place or many places.       

“I’ve heard countless times how tired people are when they come back from their vacation and feel like they ‘need a vacation from their vacation,’ and that’s because many times we pack so much into a very short time,” said travel blogger Esther Susag. “We want to see everything, do everything, and not waste a minute.

There is, however, another method that many experienced travelers suggest: slow travel. But what exactly is slow travel, and how do you take full advantage of this kind of trip? Below ,travel experts break it down.

As the name suggests, slow travel generally needs travelers to slow down and enjoy each moment, rather than rushing to check off the list items. “Slow travel may mean different things to different travelers, but I define (定义) it as staying in one place for longer and going deeper into the local culture,” said Paul Jacobs, general manager and vice president of Kayak North America. “It’s taking the time to make real connections with locals instead of packing a schedule full of tours.”            

For travel expert and author La Carmina, slow travel allows people to stop and smell the roses-quite directly. “It’s about being fully present in the moment and experiencing the sights, sounds and sensations (感觉) around you completely “letting the experience develop at its own speed and without expectations,” she said. “To me, slow travel doesn’t have a strict definition or certain things to do, but rather focuses on the feeling of being a visitor to a place.”

Slow travel is becoming more and more popular now, because it can do good to us in many ways.

7 . Those who don’t live in cities often complain about or feel surprised at the fact that strangers don’t talk to each other in urban public places. They feel sorry about the way we seem to increasingly get lost in mobile devices, seemingly oblivious to what’s going on around us. But sociologists recognize that the space we give each other in the urban places serves an important social function.

Well-known sociologist Erving Goffman developed the concept of   “civil inattention” in his book Behavior in Public Places. Far from ignoring those around us, Goffman proved through years of studying people in public that what we’re actually doing is pretending to be unaware of what others are doing around us, therefore providing them a sense of privacy, as they do the same for us. Goffman proved in his research that civil inattention typically involves at first a mirror form of social interaction, like very brief eye contact, the exchange of head nods, or weak smiles. Following that, both parties then typically shin their eyes from the other party.

Goffman theorized that what we achieve, socially speaking, with this kind of interaction, is mutual (相互的) recognition that the other present causes no threat to our security, and we both agree, tacitly (默契地), to let the other alone to do as they please. When we provide civil inattention to others, we effectively approve their behavior. Sometimes, we use civil inattention to save face when we’ve done something we feel embarrassed by, or to help manage the embarrassment that another might feel if we witness them trip, or drop something.

Civil inattention is thus not a problem, but an important part of maintaining social order in public. For this reason, problems arise when this norm (规范) is broken. Because we expect it from others and see it as normal behavior, we may feel threatened by someone who doesn’t give it to us. This is why women feel threatened by those who catcall (发嘘声)to them, and why for some men, simply being stared at by another is enough to cause a physical fight.

8 . As new year approaches, crowds around the world may be expecting fireworks to light up the sky. But the fireworks could finally lose their appeal with the growing use of drones (无人机) for light shows. One obvious example was drone light show in the opening ceremony of Tokyo Olympics.

Ollie Howitt, a technician at SkyMagic, which used 300 drones to create a display for London’s new year celebration, said demand had increased substantially. She added that drones were increasingly able to fly in greater density and for longer. Howitt also said there were benefits of drones, “They give out no pollutants, they’re reusable, and there’s no fallout or that kind of thing. So in that sense they are a very sensible choice.”

Robert Neff, the general manager at Mercia Harbor, also said the decision to use a drone display at the harbor was down to a number of factors, including the impact of fireworks on animals — from wildlife to the pets of boat owners. “They’ve often commented on how much suffering is caused to their pets by the fireworks,” he said.

But not everyone agrees. Hans Rosling, a spokesperson from the British Fireworks Association said drones could also pose environmental problems. “Suggestions are that drones have less of an impact on the environment, but we have concerns about electrical demand and use of lithium (锂) batteries which are known not to be all that ‘green’,” he said. “The impact of firework use on the environment has been shown to be minor and very short-lived and recent studies have suggested that there is likely to be more pollution from a couple of cars driving to an event than caused by fireworks at an event.”

And there are issues with drone light displays, which need to receive specific safety approval from certain authorities. Some suggest the use of drones doesn’t mean shutting off fireworks. The bangs of fireworks create a sound feeling that is hard to replace. Meanwhile, others prefer the chance to tell stories in the sky by using a series of image.

9 . In the past, video conference technology was mainly used for just a few elements of business meetings or hangouts with friends and family. Now, video conference tools are essential for our productivity, learning and social interaction. We use them not only for fun, but mainly as a meaningful part of our work.

However, once we start to join endless video calls for a few hours each day, we become very tired. This term is called “zoom fatigue”, and it’s related to overusing virtual communication platforms.

There are some advantages of using video conferencing tools. Without them, it might be impossible for us to work from home. But what we haven’t expected is a price that we need to pay for that sort of convenience.

When we are having a face-to-face conversation with others, everything seems pretty natural. While speaking, you look into the eyes, sometimes slightly moving your stare onto something else. You know when to stop talking and when to speak up. Even if you’re in a conference room with 10 people, you don’t have a terrible feeling of being observed all the time. You notice that people mostly look at the person who is speaking, and then they move their attention onto someone else. But when you use a teleconferencing tool, things are different. Being physically on camera makes you very aware of being watched all the time, because you don’t know who is looking at you. You just see many faces on your screen.

Marissa Shuffler from Clemson University once said, “When you’re on a video conference, you know everybody’s looking at you; you are on stage, so there comes the social pressure—a feeling like you need to perform. Being performative is stressful.”

Moreover, there is another interesting tendency as far as video calls are concerned. Who are you looking at most of the time? The answer is yourself. For most people, it’s hard not to look at their own face if they can see it on the screen. We are likely to make sure that our head is at the right angle and that our shirt isn’t creased.