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    How often do you check your phone? According to a study led by Nottingham Trent University in Britain, the average person looks at their phones 86 times a day. Updating their status on social media platforms also made people reach for their electronic companion frequently.

    Even the participants thought that was a lot: this figure is twice as often as they thought they did. Our phones might be shaping our behavior more than we realize. Do you actually look at your surroundings more than at your phone? Is it rude to check your phone when someone is talking to you?

    Sherry Turkle interviewed hundreds of college students about this. She's a professor of social studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. They talked about something they called "the rule of three".

    The rule has to do with being considerate to others despite the allure (诱惑力) of the little flat box. Turkle explains: "If you go to dinner with friends, you don't want to look down at your phone until you see that three people are looking up in the conversation. So there's a new rule where you don't look down unless three people are looking up in order to keep a little conversation alive."

    Actually, if you are clever enough you might use your phone as a tool to connect with people next to you. Sharing a bit of your life with them can bring you closer together. And you can also invite everyone to take a selfie (自拍照) with you.

    But the best thing to deal with mobile phone addiction is to go cold turkey and leave the machine behind occasionally or just switch it off and keep it firmly in your pocket for a while.

    Of course, she wasn't really my aunt and, out of fear, I never called her that to her face. I only referred to her as "My Aunt Fannie" because the name always made my father laugh quietly and gave my mother cause to look strictly at both of us—at me for being disrespectful of my elder and at my father for encouraging my bad behavior. I enjoyed both reactions so I looked for every opportunity to work the name into as many conversations as possible.

    As a young woman, my mother had worked in the kitchen of a large Victorian farmhouse. During those years my mother helped Aunt Fanny make the best blueberry jam ever tasted by anyone in Glenfield. She was well-known for her jam and for never sharing the recipe(食谱) with others. Even though my mother knew the recipe by heart, as long as Aunt Fannie was alive, she never made the jam without Aunt Fannie in our kitchen to direct the process and keep the secret.

    Each August, my mother would prepare me for Aunt Fannie's visit. One year, after I had helped with the jam process Aunt Fannie gave me a coin and then made me promise that I would never spend it. "Hold onto this coin," she said, "and someday you will be rich. I still have my very first coin, given to me by my grandmother." So I kept the coin in a small box and waited to become rich.

    I now have the blueberry jam recipe and the coin from Aunt Fannie. In people's eyes Aunt Fannie's success resulted from that secret recipe. But to me, it was just a common recipe. Neither have made me become a rich person, but I keep them as reminders to hold onto the valuable things in life. Money can make you feel rich for a while, but it is the relationships and the memories of time spent with friends and family that truly leave you wealthy. And that is a fortune that anyone can build.

    Many Chinese people have awakened their interest in classical Chinese poetry recently thanks to a popular TV show that aims to “appreciate classical Chinese poetry, explore cultural genes and enjoy the beauty of life” by combining traditional literary form with light-hearted TV quizzes.

    The ten-episode “Chinese Poetry Competition”, since its broadcast, has been praised for injecting vitality(活力) into TV programs with fantastic performances of contestants, impressive comments from judges as well as its innovative interactive mode. In the show, poems can be adapted into songs or depicted(描绘) through artistic pictures. Any contestant who can memorize the largest number of poems may not necessarily be the final winner, while fast reaction and usage of poems matter a lot more in the competition.

    Wu Yishu, a 16-year-old student from the High School Attached to Fudan University in Shanghai, is the champion of this season. Her rich knowledge of classical poetry impressed everyone and she rose to become famous online. In an earlier episode, Wu wowed the audience when performing in a section. She amazingly recited lines from the Classic of Poetry(《诗经》), the earliest collection of poems in China.

    “Learning poems isn't about winning or losing. The power of poetry lies in shaping one's view of life and developing one's inner world,” said Li Bo, an expert guest at the Chinese Poetry Competition's second season.

    When it comes to teaching people about poetry, Li Dingguang, the show's academic advisor, suggested that teachers should explain more about the beauty of the poetry from both the aesthetic(审美的) and emotional sides, and guide students to lose themselves in the poems' rhythmic and rhyming(押韵的) lines.

    “Although the proportion（比例) of ancient Chinese poems in the textbooks of primary and secondary schools has increased, many students still learn them for exams,” Li Dingguang said.“ Therefore, it's important to help students truly appreciate the artistry and fun of poetry.”

    Long before iPhone, the cigarette was the companion of choice for restlessness. And long before Facebook and WeChat, it was tobacco that promised to better your social life. Now, quitting smartphones has become the new quitting smoking.

    Of course, technology does not yellow your teeth, cause disease or lead to cancer. But some individuals are so concerned that device addiction is damaging their mental health. In order to reduce their dependence, even in Silicon Valley, people are turning off the messages that constantly buzz for their attention, banning smartphones from the bedroom and, curiously, changing the colors on their screens to a less tempting scale of gray.

    The big tech companies will have to work out how to respond to this new generation of quitters. Facebook is the first to go public with its attempt, hoping its recent move can make the social network more homely.

Last year the tech industry got a bad name —Big Tech—with unfortunate echoes of other industries that have faced fierce opposition, including Big Tobacco. Like them, the tech industry has to reduce concern from a new generation of activist shareholders （股东） that are questioning its role in the world. These campaigns are never as fierce as those faced by Big Tobacco. In the 1990s, socially responsible investors refused to put money in tobacco stocks.

    It is far difficult for investors to challenge Big Tech and hard to separate the good these companies do in the world-connecting old friends and giving space for people to share their ideas-from the bad. In the meantime, stopping using technology remains problematic. In The World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, Franklin Foer argues that tech should be seen in a similar way to junk food: a convenience that some reject for more continuing nutrition.

    So we need to do more to turn the tide. In the same way that public service announcements made smoking around your children taboo （禁忌）, we can warn parents against losing themselves in their smartphones while taking care of kids. We can also create no-smartphone zones at dinner. Eventually smartphones could be banned from all public places and help us give our attention to the people around us instead.

    After disappearing for over 19 years, measles (麻疹) is making a comeback in America. Since January 2019, the disease has infected more than 700 people, mostly small children, and the number seems to be increasing daily.

    Measles is an infectious disease that typically begins with a high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. Many people also lose their appetites and feel sleepy. About three to four days after the symptoms start, the person breaks out into a rash (皮疹) that begins on the face at the hairline and then spreads to the neck and the rest of the body.

    In healthy people, the recovery, which takes between two to three weeks, starts soon after the rash begins. However, for about 40 percent of patients ­ mainly kids under the age of five or older adults ­ the disease often leads to pneumonia (肺炎), which, if left untreated, could result in death.

    The recent outbreak is thought to have been caused by travelers picking up the virus in a country where the disease is still existing and exposing it to an unvaccinated (未接种的) community in the US. In New York, it was carried back by someone who had recently visited Israel, which is currently undergoing a significant measles, while in Washington, "patient zero" was infected by a type that is currently circulating in Europe.

    To limit the spread of the disease before it gets out of hand, US health officials are attempting to educate communities with high rates of unvaccinated children. They are also urging adults to consult with their physicians and get injected if considered necessary by the doctor.

    Hopefully, health officials worldwide will be able to convince parents that vaccinating their children will protect, not harm, them.

    Choosing where to live may be one of the biggest decisions you'll make when you move to Sydney, but you'll have plenty of help.

    Temporary arrival accommodation

    Before you move to Sydney, we recommend that you book a temporary place to stay. Once you get here, you can look for longer-term accommodation.

    --sydney.edu.au/accommodation/short-term

    On-campus-residential colleges (fully catered饮食全包的)

    The University has eight residential colleges on the Camperdown/Darlington Campus, including International House, a residential community of global scholars. Colleges provide comfortable, fully furnished single rooms and daily meals, along with sporting, cultural, leadership and social programs. They also include on-site tutorials(辅导课) in addition to campus-based classes.

    --sydney.edu.au/colleges

    On-campus residences (self-catered饮食自理的)

    The University has two self-run residences ­ Queen Mary Building (QMB) and Abercrombie Student Accommodation ­ on the Camperdown/Darlington Campus. Both just under a year old, they house up to 1000 students. These residences provide modern single-study rooms with large common living, learning and study spaces, shared kitchens, a theatre, gyms, soundproofed music rooms, art studios, sky lounges and rooftop gardens.

    --sydney.edu.au/campus-life/accommodation/live-on-campus.html

    Off-campus living

    More than 90 percent of our students live off campus. The University is close to many dynamic and multicultural suburbs such as Annandale, Newtown, Chippendale and Glebe. A great place to search is our large online database of properties.

    --sydney.edu.au/campus-life/accommodation/live-off-campus.html