If you listen to the stream of articles and podcasts telling us how to become a billionaire in 10 easy steps, you might hold the belief that squeezing ourselves dry each second of the day will bring happiness and success.
But this obsession with productivity is costing us. Even a car doesn’t stay in the same gear the whole time. “We are not machines,” says psychologist Professor Drew Dawson. “Performance declines as a function of time, of task and time of day.”
Instead of moments of boredom, where we might let our minds wander and come up with novel solutions to problems and novel ways of thinking, we seek constant stimulation - and have a lowered tolerance for boredom as a result.
“It leads people to a false assumption that the world’s most successful people are literally making good use of every single minute,” Dawson says. “That’s a myth. We’re not hardwired to act that way as humans, and it’s a good recipe for burnout.”
COVID-19, for a variety of reasons, has led people to question and even opt out of this myth. “Who wants to lie on their deathbed going, ‘I wish I’d been more productive’?” Dawson says. “Post-COVID, people are starting to say, ‘what am I losing compared to what am I gaining?’”
So, if not more productivity, what should we be aiming for?
·Get our priorities straight.
A life spent chasing the state of being able to do everything is less meaningful than a life of focusing on a few things that count. We can reflect on five things that matter most to us and lead a life around them. Once clear on them, we also become clear on where to direct our attention and what to say “no” to.
·Enjoy downtime(停工期)for its own sake
Glorifying productivity can blind us to the value of other parts of our lives, including boredom, connection, creativity and play. But activities in our lives don’t need to always be productive or worthwhile-enjoying an activity is reason enough to spend time on it.
We weren’t meant to be productive all the time, so stop constantly struggling, and start chilling.
1. What does “obsession with productivity” refer to in the passage?2. How has COVID-19 changed the situation according to the passage?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
It is more meaningful to focus on a few things that count in life, so we can reflect on five things in our life to say “no” to.
4. Do you agree with the statement “enjoying an activity is reason enough to spend time on it”? Why or why not?(In about 40 words)
Most people believe when they are living
Is social media messing with children’s morals?
Parents are often concerned about the effects of social media on their children’s character. We have all heard complaints that young people are spending too much time online and not enough time in the “real world” —with studies showing that nearly three-quarters of 12 to 15-year-olds in the UK have a social media profile and spend an average of 19 hours a week online.
More worrying, perhaps, than the amount of time spent online, are the findings that suggest social media use can actually influence users’ personality and character. Recent research, for example, shown that there is a link between social media use and narcissism (自恋), and that the use of social networking websites may have an nagative effect on social decision making and reduce levels of empathy (同情心).
With this in mind, one of the latest research projects at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, looks at the impact social media has on young people’s character and moral development, and aims to understand the benefits social media can have on development.
The first stage of the research involved a “parent poll (survey)” of 1,738 parents of 11 to 17-year-olds from across the UK asked a series of questions on their feelings around social media, and the moral (or immoral) messages that appear online. Our findings so far indicate that parents’ attitudes towards social media are largely negative–over a half of parents we questioned agree that social media “hinders or weakens” a young person’s character or moral development. While only 15% of respondents agreed that social media could “enhance or support” it.
However, it isn’t all doom and gloom, because our research also shows that social media can be a source for good. Nearly three quarters of the parents who use social media on a regular basis reported seeing content with a positive moral message at least once a day-including humour, appreciation of beauty, creativity, kindness, love and courage. And it could well be, that viewing this type of positive online content could have a positive influence on young people’s attitudes and behaviours.
This is because on social media sites, users often come across new perspectives and situations-such as different religions, cultures and social groups. And exposure to these situations online could actually help young people be more understanding and tolerant—and in turn develop their empathy skills. This is because it allows them to view things from other people’s perspectives, in a way they might not be able to in “real life”.
Of course, this translation from exposure to empathy may not always follow-which can be seen in the high rates of cyber bullying. According to a 2015 report, 62% of 13 to 20-year-olds who had been bullied reported some degree of cyber bullying—which shows that empathy doesn’t always play a part in online environments.
But while it may be tempting for some parents to just ban social media use altogether, it is unlikely to be a successful strategy in the long term-social media is not going away. Instead, we need to better understand the relationship between social media use and a young person’s character and moral values. And through our research, we hope to be able to offer constructive evidence-based advice on exactly this.
Because it is clear that the online environment is a moral terrain which requires successful navigation. By understanding how some immoral events can be avoided, we can help to create a safer and more even path for young people to negotiate.
1. According to the research, what are the parents’ attitudes towards social media?2. Why could viewing positive online content have a positive influence on young people’s attitudes and behaviours?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
For parents, it is a good strategy to ban social media because it may have a negative influence on young people’s moral development.
4. Please briefly present your opinion on how to be a moral person on social media. (In about 40words)
4 . In general, the society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic (官僚主义的) management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-equipped factories and piped music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does not change the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-collar and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, seemingly because they might find themselves out of a job or they would say that they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life. In fact, they feel desperate as they live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness and independence. From the moment on they are tested again and again by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and illness.
Am I suggesting a return to the pre-industrial mode of production or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming the social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities — those of all love and of reason — are the aims of social arrangements. Production and consumption should serve as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
1. By “a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery”, the author expresses the idea that man is _________.A.an essential part of society with irreplaceable functions |
B.expected to work in reasonable harmony with the rest of society |
C.an unimportant component of society, though functioning smoothly |
D.responsible for the smooth running of society and business operations |
A.they are filled with an overwhelming fear of being unemployed |
B.they don’t have any genuine satisfaction or interest |
C.they have to face the fundamental realities of human existence |
D.they lack a sense of independence and productivity |
A.caution | B.obedience | C.commitment | D.optimism |
A.To introduce the production mode of our ancestors. |
B.To show the problematic situation in society. |
C.To argue for full development of human potentials. |
D.To help people escape production and consumption. |
Faced with employment pressures
6 . In June 2022, Huffington Post and Mail Online reported that three-year-old Victoria Wilcher, who had suffered facial scarring (结疤), had been kicked out of a KFC because she was frightening customers. Later, KFC announced that no evidence had been found to support the story. This phenomenon is largely a product of the increasing pressure in newsrooms that care more about traffic figures.
Brooke Binkowski, an editor, says that, during her career, she has seen a shift towards less editorial oversight in newsrooms. “Clickbait is king, so newsrooms will uncritically print something unreal. Not all newsrooms are like this, but a lot of them are.”
Asked what the driving factor was, a journalist said, “There is undoubtedly pressure to churn out (粗制滥造) stories in order to get clicks, because they equal money. At my former employer in particular, the pressure was on due to the limited resources. That made the environment quite horrible to work in.”
In a February 2023 report for Digital Journalism, Craig Silverman wrote, “Today the bar for what is worth giving attention to seems to be much lower. Within minutes or hours, a badly sourced report can be changed into a story that is repeated by dozens of news websites, resulting in tens of thousands of shares. Once a certain critical mass is reached, repetition has a powerful effect on belief. Thus, the rumor simply becomes true for readers.”
And, in spite of the direction that some newsrooms seem to be heading in, a critical eye is becoming more, not less important, according to the New York Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan. “Reporters and editors have to be more careful than ever before. It’s extremely important to question and to use every verification (验证) method available before publication.” Yet those working in newsrooms talk of doubtful stories being tolerated because, in the words of some senior editors, “a click is a click, regardless of the advantage of a story”. And, “if the story does turn out to be false, it’s simply a chance for another bite at the cherry.”
Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling victim to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change.
1. According to Brooke Binkowski, newsrooms produce false news because .A.clicks matter a lot | B.resources are limited |
C.money is needed for news | D.journalists lack experience |
A.Lies can’t sell without an atom of truth. |
B.Rumors are like a flame blown by the wind. |
C.You can hear rumors, but you can’t know them. |
D.A lie, repeated frequently enough, will end up as truth. |
A.Pessimistic. | B.Supportive. | C.Subjective. | D.Sympathetic. |
A.Consequences of false stories. | B.Causes of online false news. |
C.Inability of journalists. | D.A craze to get clicks. |
Earlier this year, mystery travel became trendy among China’s young people and they
8 . Communities across the world are starting to ban facial recognition technologies. The efforts are well intentioned, but banning facial recognition is the wrong way to fight against modern surveillance (监视). Generally, modern mass surveillance has three broad components: identification, correlation and discrimination.
Facial recognition is a technology that can be used to identify people without their consent. Once we are identified, the data about who we are and what we are doing can be correlated with other data. This might be movement data, which can be used to “follow” us as we move throughout our day. It can be purchasing data, Internet browsing data, or data about who we talk to via email or text. It might be data about our income, ethnicity, lifestyle, profession and interests. There is an entire industry of data brokers who make a living by selling our data without our consent.
It’s not just that they know who we are; it’s that they correlate what they know about us to create profiles about who we are and what our interests are. The whole purpose of this process is for companies to treat individuals differently. We are shown different ads on the Internet and receive different offers for credit cards. In the future, we might be treated differently when we walk into a store, just as we currently are when we visit websites.
It doesn’t matter which technology is used to identify people. What’s important is that we can be consistently identified over time. We might be completely anonymous (匿名的) in a system that uses unique cookies to track us as we browse the Internet, but the same process of correlation and discrimination still occurs.
Regulating this system means addressing all three steps of the process. A ban on facial recognition won’t make any difference. The problem is that we are being identified without our knowledge or consent, and society needs rules about when that is permissible.
Similarly, we need rules about how our data can be combined with other data, and then bought and sold without our knowledge or consent. The data broker industry is almost entirely unregulated now. Reasonable laws would prevent the worst of their abuses.
Finally, we need better rules about when and how it is permissible for companies to discriminate. Discrimination based on protected characteristics like race and gender is already illegal, but those rules are ineffectual against the current technologies of surveillance and control. When people can be identified and their data correlated at a speed and scale previously unseen, we need new rules.
Today, facial recognition technologies are receiving the force of the tech backlash (抵制), but focusing on them misses the point. We need to have a serious conversation about all the technologies of identification, correlation and discrimination, and decide how much we want to be spied on and what sorts of influence we want them to have over our lives.
1. According to Para 2, with facial recognition, .A.one’s lifestyle changes greatly | B.one’s email content is disclosed |
C.one’s profiles are updated in time | D.one’s personal information is released |
A.discrimination based on new tech surveillance is illegal |
B.different browsing data bring in different advertisements |
C.using mobiles anonymously keeps us from being correlated |
D.data brokers control the current technologies of surveillance |
A.call for banning facial recognition technologies |
B.advocate the urgent need for changes in related laws |
C.inform readers of the disadvantages of facial recognition |
D.evaluate three broad components in modern mass surveillance |
When the news that people
Rules help us live together in a community. At my local park, there is a sign that reads, “Keep off the grass.” Because our community has a need for a nice green space