Have you ever run into a careless cell phone user on the street? Perhaps they were busy talking, texting or checking updates on WeChat without looking at what was going on around them. As the number of this new “species” of human has kept rising, they have been given a new name —phubbers(低头族).

    Recently, a cartoon created by students from China Central Academy of Fine Arts put this group of people under the spotlight. In the short film, phubbers with various social identities bury themselves in their phones. A doctor plays with his cell phone while letting his patient die, a pretty woman takes selfie in front of a car accident site, and a father loses his child without knowing about it while using his mobile phone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of the world.

    Although the ending sounds overstated, the damage phubbing can bring is real.

    Your health is the first to bear the effect and result of it. “Constantly bending your head to check your cell phone could damage your neck,” Guangming Dailyquoted doctors as saying, “the neck is like a rope that breaks after long-term stretching.” Also, staring at cell phones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, according to the report.

    But that's not all. Being a phubber could also damage your social skills and drive you away from your friends and family. At reunions with family or friends, many people tend to stick to their cell phones while others are chatting happily with each other and this creates a strange atmosphere, Beijing Evening News reported.

    It can also cost you your life. There have been lots of reports on phubbers who fell to their death, suffered accidents, and were robbed of their cell phones in broad daylight.

    I'm big into reading, and since you're on this page, I guess you like reading as well. This page is an ongoing log of books I find to be awesome or useful. If you're looking to create a well-rounded, successful college experience, you can't go wrong with any of these.

    The Power of Habit

    This book is absolutely amazing. As it turns out, habits shape much more of our behavior than we realize. The habits we do have largely determine the progress (either good or bad) we make in life. Luckily, the way habits are formed can be understood—which means they can be changed—and The Power of Habit is the best overview of how habits work that I've ever read.

    A Mind for Numbers

    If you're looking for practical techniques you can use to increase your ability to learn new information effectively, you should read this book. Contrary to what the title would imply, Dr. Barbara Oakley's A Mind for Numbers is applicable to any learning discipline--not just math and science. This book will quickly give you an understanding of how your brain learns and encodes (编码) new information, and will also equip you with strategies for learning more while studying less.

    Brain Rules

    If you know how the brain works, you'll be better equipped to manage your own and understand the ones contained inside the heads of the people you know and meet In Brain Rules, John Medina expertly shows us how the brain does things, and lays out 12 rules that form a basis for using that pile of mush (糊状物) more effectively. It's not just an excellent brain book—it's an excellent business book and an excellent college success book as well.

    Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain

    I firmly believe that a solid foundation of nutrition, exercise, and sleep will help you succeed in college better than any study hack, which is why I recommend this book. Reading it will educate you on how exercise affects your brain, which in turn will give you more mental ammunition (弹药) that you can use to shoot down excuses when you're feeling lazy or “busy”, and don't want to work out. By the way, how much exercise have you gotten today?

    Put an ice cube(小冰块) from your fridge into a glass of water. You have a piece of string(线) 10 centimeters long. The problem is to take out that piece of ice with the help of the string. But you must not touch the ice with your fingers (手指).

    You may ask your friends to try to do that when you are having dinner together. There is a saltcellar on the table. You must use salt when you carry out this experiment.

    First you put the string across the piece of ice. Then put some salt on the ice. Salt makes ice melt(融化). The ice round the string will begin to melt. But when it melts, it will lose heat. The cold ice cube will make the salt water freeze(冻结) again.

    After a minute or two you may raise(提起) the piece of string and with it you will raise your piece of ice!

    This experiment can be very useful to you. If, for example, there is ice near the door of your house, you must use very much salt to melt all the ice. If you don't put enough salt, the water will freeze again.

In the movie, The Day After Tomorrow, many climate changes including an ice age are caused by global warming. Much of the science in the movie has been questioned by people. However, there may be some truth to the idea in the movie that global warming could cause an ice age.

The theory starts with an understanding of why Europe and Scandinavia are not colder already. After all, other places at the same latitude(纬度) are covered with ice. The ocean current called the Gulf Stream brings warm waters from the Caribbean to the UK and Europe. These waters warm the countries around their path. This is why the UK, Europe and Scandinavia have a warmer climate than Alaska. Global warming has nothing to do with this. Global warming is significant. It could slow the Gulf Stream, or even stop it. If this were to happen, the cold waters would stay in the area of Europe, the UK, Scandinavia and the Northeastern US. It could mean an ice age for those regions.

Some weaknesses in the Gulf Stream could happen for different reasons. These days, it could happen due to global warming, caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels.

If a new ice age happened, it would probably be caused by the melting of the polar ice. This will lead large quantities of cold and fresh water to come into the ocean, which would disrupt the Gulf Stream and cause the cooling of many areas that now have a mild climate.

Scientists have gathered a lot of data from the oceans and the land to try to determine whether an ice age could be caused by global warming. With all this information at hand, it appears that it is indeed possible that global warming could lead to an ice age.

We're often told "laughter is the best medicine".Laughter is ancient and instinctual,and a fundamental part of everyday life—something most of us enjoy naturally.There are comedy channels on TV,comedy festivals and our favorite funny friend who's sure to get our giggle on.

So why do we need laughter experts?Surely they're for people who can't laugh for whatever reason.However,while the ability to laugh is innate,the decision to activate and use it to its full ability is a choice.

When life gets stressful;illness creeps in;relationships are put to the test or we're struggling financially,there's rarely much to laugh about.So,we don't.Yet turning into the lighter,more humorous side of life,and activating one's "laughter self" is critical to mental health.Rather than waiting for something funny to happen or for life to be a bed of roses,we can transform our emotional state by tapping into our laughter and humor resources.This helps create distance between us and our pain and improve our moods and resilience(恢复力) to stress.It provides relief and release from some of the stress that has embedded in our bodies and minds,freeing ourselves to power forward,even a little.

Ironically,because laughter is an innate and largely unconscious behavior,it's rarely given much thought.As it's seldom thought about,it can't be that important.

Wrong.If laughing is a more complex behavior,my belief is people will pay greater honor to it,rather than something to laugh off.It's actually one of the most complicated things our bodies process.It is a vocal means of communication before language forms and the brain has fully developed.The vast majority of us maintain the ability to laugh until our final curtain falls,even amid declining cognitive function.

Turning toward the healing power of humor and laughter assists with personal and professional resilience,performance and overall well-being.No joke.

We credit Socrates with the insight that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and that to "know thyself" is the path to true wisdom.

But when it comes to introspection (内省), you might easily slip into the "rumination" (沉思) mode. This pattern is likely to cause you to become stuck in the rut of your own thoughts and absorbed in the emotions that might lead you to a wrong way. Research has also shown that people who are likely to ruminate are often at a substantially increased risk of depression.

Instead, scientific research suggests that you should adopt an ancient method favored by the likes of Julius Caesar, known as "illeism" which was coined in 1809 from the Latin "ille" meaning "he". The point of adopting this third person thinking is that such a small change can clear your emotional fog, allowing you to see your biases and helping you know the limits of your understanding of the problem at hand.

A study finds that illeism can also bring long-term benefits to wise reasoning (including elements like taking the perspective of others, recognizing uncertainty, and so on). The finding is the brainchild of Igor Grossmann, a psychologist. According to Grossmann, wise reasoning had long been considered too vague for scientific enquiry. In one of his earlier experiments, he established that as with IQ, the scores of wise reasoning could be achieved and were meaningful.

Grossmann's latest research team asked nearly 300 participants to describe a challenging social situation, and two psychologists graded them on different aspects of wise reasoning. The participants then had to keep a diary for four weeks. Each day, they had to describe a situation they'd just experienced, such as a disagreement with someone. Half were prompted to do so in the first person, while the others were encouraged to describe their situations from a third person perspective. At the end of the study, all participants repeated the wise reasoning test.

While the control group showed no overall change in their wise reasoning scores, those using illeism improved on their perspective taking and capacity to find a compromise.

Grossmann's work continues to prove that the subject of wisdom is worthy of experimental studies, indicating wiser reasoning is within everyone's power.