1 . You may not pay much attention to your daily elevator (电梯) ride. Many of us use a lift several times during the day without really thinking about it. But Lee Gray, PhD of the University of North Carolina, US, has made it his business to examine this overlooked form of public transport. He is known as the “Elevator Guy”.

“The lift becomes this interesting social space where etiquette (礼仪) is sort of strange,” Gray told the BBC. “Elevators are socially very interesting but often very awkward places.”

We walk in and usually turn around to face the door. If someone else comes in, we may have to move. And here, according to Gray, lift users unthinkingly go through a set pattern of movements. He told the BBC what he had observed.

He explained that when you are the only one inside a lift, you can do whatever you want — it’s your own little box.

If there are two of you, you go into different corners, standing diagonally (对角线地) across from each other to create distance.

When a third person enters, you will unconsciously form a triangle. And when there is a fourth person it becomes a square, with someone in every corner. A fifth person is probably going to have to stand in the middle.

Newcomers to the lift will need to size up the situation when the doors slide open and then act decisively. Once in, for most people the rule is simple-look down, or look at your phone.

Why are we so awkward in lifts?

“You don’t have enough space.” Professor Babette Renneberg, a clinical psychologist at the Free University of Berlin, told the BBC. “Usually when we meet other people we have about an arm’s length of distance between us. And that’s not possible in most elevators.”

In such a small, enclosed space it becomes very important to act in a way that cannot be construed (理解) as threatening or odd. “The easiest way to do this is to avoid eye contact,” she said.

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In a recent survey, 19 percent of teenagers said that they     1     (post) a comment online that they later regretted. The problem is that once something     2    (put) on the Internet, it can be difficult to delete. Even if you’re able to do so, someone else     3     (probable) has already taken a picture of your post. In addition, the content     4     (remove) from a Webpage can often be recovered.    5    (post) negative comments or images online is certainly best avoided, but that’s not the only thing you should consider     6    it comes to your online behavior. Experts say it’s also important for young people to earn a positive Internet reputation. You can do this by sharing positive content about the things you’re most interested     7    . This way, if someone runs a search on you, the results will show them the content you most want them to see.

Managing an online reputation can be     8     (challenge). Remember that privacy (隐私）settings can be very helpful for this, so use them if they’re available. But most     9     (importance), be careful about     10     you share—your future may depend on it.

4 . Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.

People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time fighting against the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.

The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information, to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.

I see people trapped in a pathological (病态的) relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.

What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.” But it’s time to discover that it does not work for technology.

Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.” To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today’s overused technology.

8 . A culture’s values can be mirrored by its humor. Humor has been evaluated by many great minds such as Thomas Hobbes, who, in “On Nature”, disliked humor, “Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from sudden thought of feeling far better than others.” He thought humor to be a negative quality of human narrow-mindedness.

However, Mordechai Gordon, Ph. D of Education, insists, “Humor allows us to view the world from an angle that is amusing rather than serious.” I agree with Gordon. Learning to look at the world through humor is important.

In the United States, every four years an election occurs. Without humor as a way to express their feelings, how else would Americans keep from clawing their eyes out (伤心欲绝) and going the way of lemming (盲目跟从) ? Television shows a joke “The Daily Show” have become important parts of American culture. They are mothering the masses by metaphorically (隐喻地) airplane-ing (用鼻子吸食大麻) politics into our mouths. They make politics fun.

Of course, politics is only one type of humor. Social humor helps people through the twists and turns of the human condition. American pop culture promotes an unhealthy self-image. On the topic of self-image, Hari Kondabolu stands out. He has a joke about the popular musical group “The Pussycat Dolls”, describing their hit song “Don’t Cha” as a negative representation of women. He points out an obvious offence in American culture.

A study from Loyola University of Maryland has shown that humor is one determining factor for selecting a mating partner. Amongst other things, mates look for an outstanding funny bone in a potential partner.

Of course, humor is not always used for good purposes. Humor can be linked to vulgarity (粗俗) and racism, but, like everything else, it has potential to unite human beings by allowing us to laugh at ourselves, our failures and our connection with one another.

Though life may seem tough and depressing at times, all I have to do is look in the mirror at my increased wrinkles to know that there is a comedy out there that even Chaplin wasn’t aware of.

With that in mind, remember to laugh with humanity and sometimes at humanity.

10 . “It’s a big hammer to crack a nut.” This is how one angry parent described the recent crackdown (严厉的打击) by London police on parents who drop their kids off at school by car. Yes, you read that correctly—the very way of transportation that many American schools insist is the only safe way to deliver kids to school is now considered illegal in the UK.

The decision to fine any vehicles seen dropping off or picking up kids within a particular zone of east London comes from city councillors’ (议员) long-term efforts to make the area safer and less crowded. They say they’ve been trying for years “to encourage reasonable parking”, but in vain. Neighborhood residents complain frequently about their driveways being blocked by illegally parked cars for 15 minutes or more, often while they’re trying to get to work, and the streets are long overcrowded.

Now the rules have changed. Some parents are angry. Angie is a mother who made the “big hammer” comment and says the crackdown is “way over the top.” The nearest drop-off point for her six-year-old is now a five-minute walk from the school. Others are happy with the decision, serious though it may seem. Councillor Jason Frost said:

“Traffic has significantly reduced, and more children are now walking to school, which is a great result. I would rather have complaints that we are slightly inconveniencing parents than hear that a child had been seriously injured because nothing was done.”

I see daily the disorder created by these in-town drivers, when I walk my own kids to school. There’s a parking lot crowded with vehicles and a slow-moving train of cars moving in circles, many filling the air with harmful smoke. Meanwhile, the conversations around overweight children and the importance of daily physical activities continue to stand out in schools.