You get anxious if there's no wi-fi in the hotel or mobile phone signal up the mountain. You feel upset if your phone is getting low on power and you secretly worry things will go wrong at work if you're not there. All these can be called “always on” stress caused by smart phone addiction.

    For some people, smart phones have set them free from the nine-to-five work. Flexible working has given them more control over their working lives and enabled them to spend more time with their friends and families. For many others though, smart phones have become cruel masters in their pockets, never allowing them to turn them off and relax.

    Pittsburgh-based developer Kevin Holesh was worried about how much he was ignoring his family and friends in favor of his iPhone. So he developed an app — Moment — to monitor his usage. The app enables users to see how much time they're spending on the device and set up warnings if the usage limits are broken. “Moment's goal is to promote balance in your life,” his website explains. “Some time on your phone, some time off it enjoying your loving family and friends around you.”

    Dr. Christine Grant, an occupational psychologist at Coventry University, said, “The effects of this ‘always on' culture are that your mind is never resting, and you're not giving your body time to recover, so you're always stressed. And the more tired and stressed we get, the more mistakes we make. Physical and mental health can suffer.”

    And as the number of connected smart phones is increasing, so is the amount of data. This is leading to a sort of decision paralysis (瘫痪) and is creating more stress in the workplace because people have to receive a broader range of data and communications which are often difficult to manage. “It actually makes it more difficult to make decisions and many do less because they're controlled by it all and feel they can never escape the office,” said Dr. Christine Grant.

Note：

* All under 18's must be accompanied by an adult

* Pets allowed: No

* Cost: Free

* Phone: 01674­830736

* Location: SNH Visitor Centre, St Cyrus National Nature Reserve

    Nobody is sure where and when the expression “apple-pie order” began. Some say that Scottish and English writers used the expression a long time ago. Others say it was first used in the northeastern American states known as New England. The housewives of New England cut their apples in even slices. Then they filled pie pans with them in an organized way, row upon row. As one writer said, the women of New England loved to have everything in its place. This perhaps explains why it generally is believed that the expression “apple-pie order” began in New England.

    Another old expression, “apple of discord”, comes from ancient mythology(神话), however. The myth says that all the gods and goddesses were sitting around the table to celebrate the marriage of Thetis and Peleus. One of the goddesses-Discord was a troublemaker. She threw away a golden apple on the table to be given as a prize to the most beautiful goddess.

    At one time, the tomato was called a love apple. That was a mistake. This is how the mistake happened: In the sixteenth century, Spain brought the tomato from South America after Spanish explorers had landed there. Spain then sold the tomato to Morocco. Italian traders carried it on to Italy. The Italian name for the tomato was “pomo di Moro” meant “d'amour” -the French word for love. And so “pomo di Moro” became the apple of love.

    People believe many things about the apple. One belief is that it has great powers of keeping people healthy. A very common expression is "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

    Another belief is based on fact. The expression is "one rotten apple spoils the barrel." When an apple begins to go bad, it ruins all the other apples around it in the container. The expression has come to mean that one bad person in a group can cause everyone to act bad.

    An open office is supposed to force employees to cooperate. To have them talk more face to face. To get them off instant messenger (IM) and brainstorming new ideas. But a recent study by two researchers offers evidence to support what many people who work in open offices already know: It doesn't really work that way. The noise causes people to put on headphones and tune out. The lack of privacy causes others to work from home when they can. And the sense of being in a fishbowl means many choose email over a desk-side chat.

    Ethan Bernstein and Stephen Turban, two Harvard Business School professors, studied two Fortune 500 companies that made the shift to an open office environment from one where workers had more privacy. Using “sociometric” electronic badges (徽章) and microphones, as well as data on email and instant messenger use by employees, the researchers found in the first study that after the organization made the move to open-plan offices, workers spent 73% less time in face-to-face interaction. Meanwhile, email use rose 67% and IM use went up 75%.

    The participants wore the badges and microphones for several weeks before the office was redesigned and for several after, and the company gave the researchers access to their electronic communications. The results were astonishing. “We were surprised by the degree to which we found the effect,” Bernstein said. The badges could tell that two people had a face-to-face interaction without recording actual spoken words. The researchers were careful to make sure other factors weren't in question—the business cycle was similar, for instance, and the group of employees were the same.

    In a second study, the researchers looked at the changes in interaction between specific pairs of colleagues, finding a similar drop in face-to-face communication and a smaller but still significant increase in electronic correspondence.

    Another wrinkle in their research, Bernstein said, is that not only did workers shift the way of communication they used, but they also tended to interact with different groups of people online than they did in person. Moving from one kind of communication to another may not be all bad—“maybe email is just more efficient,” he said—but if managers want certain teams of people to be interacting, that may be lost more than they think. The shift in office space could “have strong effects on productivity and the quality of work”.

    Bernstein hopes the research will offer evidence that will help managers consider the possible trade-offs of moving to an open office plan. In seeking a lower cost per square foot, they buy into the idea that it will also lead to more cooperation, even if it's not clear that's true. “I don't blame the architects,” he said. “But I do think we spend more of our time thinking about how to design workplaces based on the observer's angle”—the manager—“rather than the observed.”

    Joey was born in 1990 in Connecticut and now lives in North Carolina in the United States. When Joey was six, he started racing small cars in competitions. He began to win many races, but they weren't big races. His parents decided to move to Atlanta, Georgia, so Joey could compete in bigger and better competitions. When he was 12, he set a record by winning 14 races in a row at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. He continued to win many races, and finally began racing with regular-sized (正常大小的) race cars.

    When Joey was 15 years old, he met the race car driver Mark Martin. Martin is a famous NASCAR driver. NASCAR is the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and it is the biggest and most popular car-racing organization in the United States. Martin was interested in Joey and thought he was “the real deal.” He said, “I am sure that he can be one of the greatest that ever raced in NASCAR. There's no doubt in my mind.”

    Martin was right. Joey started as a NASCAR driver in 2007. NASCAR has many races, and at first, Joey was only able to compete in smaller races because of his age. In his first NASCAR season, he won a championship (冠军). In 2008, he was able to compete in bigger NASCAR competitions. He competed in one of the top NASCAR racing series called the Nationwide Series, and at 18, he became the youngest winner in Nationwide Series history.

    In 2009, he became the youngest winner in another top NASCAR racing series called the Sprint Cup Series, and he also won the Nationwide Series for the fifth time. To be one of the best drivers in the history of racing, Joey has to win many more races. But at 19, he's off to a good start.

Earlier this year Rodney Smith Jr. made headlines when he drove eight hours from his home in Huntsville. Alabama, to cut the lawn for an elderly soldier in North Carolina who couldn't find anyone to help him with his yard work.

That wasn't the first time the twenty-nine-year-old Bermuda native had gained such attention. To do his good deeds, Rodney often finds leads for those in need through social media.

Back to one August afternoon in 2015, Rodney Smith Jr. was driving home. That's when Rodney saw an elderly man struggling to mow his lawn. He would take a couple of shaky steps, using the handle to stabilize himself, pause, then slowly push the mower again. Rodney decided to help. Mr. Brown thanked him greatly, and Rodney went home feeling satisfied.

Sitting at his computer to do his homework, Rodney couldn't get Mr. Brown out of his mind. There must be many Mr. Browns out there. He went online and posted that he would mow lawns for free for senior citizens. Messages flooded in.

One day a cancer-battling woman said she wasn't having a good day. Rodney decided to do more than mowing lawns. After he finished mowing, he knocked on her door. "You're going to win this fight, Madam", he said. Then he asked folks to pray for her on social media.

Word of Rodney's mission spread. A grandmother in Ohio said he'd encouraged her 12-year-old grandson to mow lawns. He got a letter from a seven-year-old boy in Kansas. "Mr. Rodney, I would like to be a part of your program, and I'll make you proud," he wrote.

That gave Rodney an idea. In 2017, he decided to establish a programme Raising Men Lawn Care Service to make a national movement for young people. The kids learn the joy of giving back.

Yard work seems like a small, simple thing, but taking care of the lawn means a lot to the people they do it for. "When we mow their yards for free, they can use the money for healthcare and food etc. It means more than you would think," Rodney said.