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 .    

Cheating can happen in a lot of different ways.When people cheat,it’s not fair to other people，like the kids who studied for the test or who the true winners of a game were.

Many people like the action of cheating.In their opinion,it makes difficult things seem easy,like getting all the right answers on the test.But it doesn't solve the problem of not knowing the material and it won't help on the next test—unless the person cheats again.

Some people lose respect for cheaters and think less of them.The cheaters themselves may feel bad because they know they shouldn't get that good grade.And,if they get caught cheating,they will be in trouble at school，and maybe at home,too.

Some kids cheat because they're busy or lazy and they want to get good grades without spending the time studying.Other kids might feel like they can’t pass the test without cheating.Even when there seems to be a “good reason” for cheating,cheating isn’t a good idea.

If you were sick or upset about something the night before the day and couldn’t study,it would be better to talk with the teacher about this.And if you don’t have enough time to study for a test because of swim practice,you need to talk with your parents about how to balance swimming and school.A kid who thinks cheating is the only way to pass a test needs to talk with the teacher and his or her parents so they can find some solutions together.Talking about these problems and working them out will feel better than cheating.

4 . Teenagers are especially likely to suffer loneliness. Here are some suggestions for speeding a recovery from loneliness.

Reach out to others, but start small. A smile and a friendly greeting for the student behind you in line at the cafeteria won’t make you best friends.     1     It also can make it easier to interact the next time.

Find a safe place to make connections. If going to the school dance makes you feel like you just don’t belong, try joining a special­interest group. Maybe it’s the drama club or the marching band.     2    

Find other ways of making connections. Lonely people hunger for acceptance and friendship. Sometimes feeling accepted and liked comes more easily when you do something for others.     3     Teach a child in reading. Take notes for a disabled classmate. You might be surprised at the connections you make after reaching out in these ways.

    4     Loneliness is an absence of quality friendships, not of a particular quantity of friends. That’s why it’s important to know how to select a friend. The best friendships are those based on similar values and attitudes.

You get what you expect, so expect the best. If you expect others to be friendly, you will behave in similar ways.

    5     It goes away as teens learn how to find their way through their social world and connect with others.

7 . After finishing my teaching for a school year. I thought that I should go back to Montreal, Quebec, my hometown, for a visit. My main goal was to relax in preparation for the challenges of my retirement in the coming year.

Through my stay in Montreal, I met lots of Chinese who were trying hard to succeed and then led a better life in Canada. Some travelled thousands of miles to get knowledge. When I spoke with some of them about the major barrier they had to face after they arrived in Canada, they all talked about the two official languages of Canada. But I was impressed by their ability to express their ideas while they were changing between English and French.

Almost all of those people said they often felt homesick. They missed their families and friends. Though Montreal had lots of Chinese restaurants, they longed for a home-cooked meal.

I met some tourists who were trying to realize their childhood dreams of experiencing the life in a developed country. When I asked them if Montreal had lived up to their expectations, they hesitated. They said that reality never agreed with fantasies. However, they were glad to have the opportunity to visit Montreal and didn’t regret taking the trip.

Not all the Chinese people I met were happy. I once met a young lady who met with a gentleman through the Internet. However, to her disappointment, he disappeared after he promised to marry her in Montreal.

I was served by another Chinese person who could not deal with the challenges of studying in an English-speaking environment and ended up working in a restaurant with low pay.

Exploring different parts of the world, without any doubt, is a rich experience .However, one should be realistic when it comes to leaving his hometown to start a new life in a foreign country. One should spend time examining the advantages and shortcomings of the adventure before he decides to chase an uncertain dream of achieving success or leading a better life.

8 . There is a popular saying in the English language: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Well, that is not true. Unkind words, name-calling or even the so-called “the silent treatment” can hurt children as much as being physically hit, sometimes even more so. A recent study of middle school children showed that verbal (言语的) abuse by other children can harm, the development in the brain. The study was a project of researchers at Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts. Researcher Martin Teicher and his team studied young adults, aged 18 to 25. These young men and women had not ever been treated in a cruel or violent way by their parents. The researchers asked the young people to rate their childhood exposure to verbal abuse from both parents and other children. Then the researchers performed imaging tests on the brains of the subjects.

The images showed that the people who reported suffering verbal abuse from peers in middle school had underdeveloped connections between the left and right side of the brain. The two sides of the brain are connected by a large bundle of connecting fibers called the corpus callosum. This was the area that was underdeveloped.

The middle school years are a time when these brain connections are developing. So, unkind, hurtful comments from children or adults during this period have the greatest effect. The researchers tested the mental and emotional condition of all the young people in the study. The tests showed that this same group of people had higher levels of fear, depression, anger and drug abuse than others in the study.

The researchers published their findings online on the American Journal of Psychiatry's website.

Parents cannot control what other people say to their children, but they can prepare their children.

9 . Stress used to be an almost unknown word, but now that we are used to talking about it, I have found that people are beginning to get stressed about being stressed.

In recent years, stress has been regarded as a cause of a whole range of medical problems, from high blood pressure to mental illness.

But like so many other things, it is only too much stress that does you harm. It is time you considered that if there were no stress in your life, you would achieve little. If you are stuck at home with no stress, then your level of performance will be low. Up to a certain point, the more stress you are under, the better your performance will be.

Beyond a certain point, though, further stress will only lead to exhaustion, illness and finally a breakdown. You can tell when you are over the top and on the downward slope, by asking yourself a number of questions. Do you, for instance, feel that too much is being expected of you, and yet find it impossible to say no? Do you find yourself getting impatient or annoyed with people over unimportant things?... If the answer to all those questions is yes, you had better control your stress, as you probably are under more stress than is good for you.

To some extend you can control the amount of stress in your life. Doctors have worked out a chart showing how much stress is involved in various events. Getting married is 50, pregnaney 40, moving house 20, Christmas 12, etc. If the total stress in your life is over 150, you are twice as likely to get ill.

10 . At the foot of the Tianmu Mountain in Zhejiang, a homestay (民宿) is attracting travelers from far and wide, which has won architectural medal at the 2021 German iF Design Awards.

The owners of the homestay are a couple in their late 30s who decided to return to their hometown three years ago. Li Xiumei used to be in charge of a division at a company in Hangzhou, and her husband was a sales director. It was an ordinary situation where Li’s husband was on business trips a lot and Li still worked on weekends. City life sometimes is not easy.

In 2018, they quit jobs and went back to Dongtianmu village, which lies in a forest of bamboo. The first time they drove into the village was one late afternoon. The cooking smoke was rising from the foot of the mountain, which gave them a very different feeling from the city.

The homestay was built beside her husband’s old countryside house. The old house is preserved (保留), while a brand-new building was built on its side and the whole site is made up of four courtyards. It has been updated to have a hall, a tea room, a kitchen, a dining room. Japanese cherry trees are planted in the east courtyard. A swimming pool is placed in the west courtyard, with a bar located on one side.

Li and her husband love gardening and music, and their new home gives them enough space to continue their interests and relax in the heart of nature. Li wants to share the quiet country life, so she makes her new home a homestay. In 2019, the homestay became an online hit after guests shared their experiences on social media. “The longer I stay here, the more I feel it was the right choice to come back, and this is more meaningful than making money,” Li says.