Yesterday and Today

    Life in the twenty-first century will be different from life today. Between then and now many changes will take place, but what will the changesbe?

    The population is growing fast. There will be many people in world and most of them will live longer than people live now.

    Computers will be much smaller and more useful, and there will be at least one in every home. And computer studies will be one of the important subjects in schools then.

    People will work fewer hours than they do now and they will have more free time for sports, watching TV and travel. Traveling will be much cheaper and easier. And many more people will go to other countries for holidays.

    There will be changes in our food, too. More land will be used for building new towns and houses for all the people. Then there will be less room for cows and sheep, so meat will be more expensive. Maybe no one will eat it every day. Instead they will eat more fruit and vegetable. Maybe people will be healthier.

    Work in the future will be different, too. Dangerous and hard work will be done by robots. Because of this, many people will not have enough work to do. This will be a problem.

    Everybody sleeps, but what people stay up late to catch or wake up early in order not to miss varies by culture？

    From data collected, it seems the things that cause us to lose the most sleep, on average, are sporting events, time changes, and holidays.

    Around the world, people changed sleep patterns thanks to the start or end of daylight savings time. Russians, for example, began to wake up about a half-hour later each day after President Vladimir Putin shifted the country permanently to "winter time" starting on October 26.

    Russia's other late nights and early mornings generally correspond to public holidays. On New Year's Eve, Russians have the world's latest bedtime, hitting the hay at around 3:30 a. m.

    Russians also get up an hour later on International Women's Day, the day for treating and celebrating female relatives.

    Similarly, Americans' late nights, late mornings, and longest sleeps fall on three-day weekends.

    Canada got the least sleep of the year the night it beat Sweden in the Olympic hockey (冰球) final.

    The World Cup is also chiefly responsible for sleep deprivation. The worst night for sleep in the U. K. was the night of the England-Italy match on June 14. Brits stayed up a half-hour later to watch it, and then they woke up earlier than usual the next morning. Thanks to summer nights, the phenomenon in which the sun barely sets in northern countries in the summertime. That was nothing, though, compared to Germans, Italians, and the French, who stayed up around an hour and a half later on various days throughout the summer to watch the Cup.

    It should be made clear that not everyone has a device to record their sleep patterns; in some of these nations, it's likely that only the richest people do. And people who elect to track their sleep may try to get more sleep than the average person. Even if that's the case, though, the above findings are still striking. If the most health-conscious among us have such deep swings in our shut-eye levels throughout the year, how much sleep are the rest of us losing?

    I remember my childhood summers fondly, as many of us do. Those golden days in which I would leave the house after a still sleepy, leisurely breakfast and come home only for lunch in the middle of a day spent entirely outdoors. We did not live in town and, thus, playmates were limited to siblings (兄弟姐妹) and the cousins who lived down the road.

    Our backyard became the playground in which our imaginations would run wild—turning those few acres into magical forests, the creek (小溪) into a violent river and our trusty dog, Rex, into the many roles of horse, monster and any other creature that we children did not want to play. By the end of the three months of summer break we were sunburned from our hours in the sun, full of the memories of a thousand magical moments and bonded to our siblings in a way that winter's forced hibernation (冬眠) never seemed to connect us.

    Today, I live on the same acreage that I did as a child. My children have the blessing of having the same grassy patches to scratch their bare feet as they run through it, the same creek to stomp(跺脚)through, and not the same dog—but their very own energetic pup to imagine away the days with.

    However, this is not the same world as it was twenty, thirty years ago. There are screens everywhere in the house to demand attention—televisions with hundreds of channels, computers with access to a thousand entertaining sites, tablets stocked with apps. There is also no longer the expectation of a stretch of an unscheduled three months. Their school friends tell competitive stories of carefully planned vacations, spending time traveling to all of the local attractions—various parks, the zoo, the science center, all of the festivals which come breezing through town. On the very first day of school they will be asked to list their favorite activities of the summer and no longer are these lists filled with things like finding wood to make a bridge over a creek or a day spent in imaginative play with their siblings. The lists are now full of trips, overscheduled days and “camps” that no longer offer a stay in nature.

    Our children have become used to being entertained every minute. In our house, we have limits on electronics and kick the kids outside on a nice day. Even as we try as parents to set limits and get our children out in nature, the new cry of childhood seems to be “I'm bored,” which is not really just meaning “I'm bored,” “but “Please find something to entertain me, as I no longer can entertain myself even for a short period of time.” Our children no longer know how to sit in silence, entertain themselves while even waiting for a few minutes and have lost the awe of nature as they have become addicted to screen time.

    We have made a choice in this household to do what is no longer expected of children in many households—we will ensure that there are days of “boredom.” We refuse to spend our days scheduling our children's every hour. There will be many days with no plans at all, when they will be sent outside with only the grass and the trees and their own imaginations to entertain them.

    The screens will be turned off and our children will find that times of quiet can be just as or even more entertaining. They will bond with their brother and sister, making memories that they will replay in their minds well into adulthood. Even though sunscreen will be religiously applied, they will leave summer with sunburned and scratches coming from climbing trees, stomping through creeks and chasing the dog in the field.

    This summer I will be giving my children the greatest gift of all—boredom. For inside boredom is the gift of getting to know your own mind, of finding comfort and joy in nature and in the realization that the greatest gifts are experience, not things.

    We humans love to stare into our smart devices. We gaze for hours—about 10 hours and 39 minutes a day—at our computers, smartphones, tablets and televisions. Is all this staring bad for us? It might be, mainly because as we stare at our devices we are exposing ourselves to blue light.

    Blue light is a type of electromagnetic radiation with a very short wavelength that produces a high amount of energy. While it's true that light can damage our eyes under certain circumstances, there's no scientific evidence suggesting that blue light is harmful to our eyes. But many people still think it is, which is why blue light—blocking glasses are so popular. So do the glasses work?

    “Everyone is very concerned that blue light may be causing damage to the eye, but there's no evidence that it may be causing serious damage, "Dr. Rahul Khurana, clinical spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmologists, told Business Insider.

    Blue light exposure is nothing new. In fact, the sun is the largest source of blue light. Moreover, blue light is also present in LED light. But if blue light isn't harmful, then why are we constantly rubbing our eyes when we're looking at our screens? The answer is eyestrain(眼疲劳):More than 60 percent of people experience eye problems associated with digital eyestrain. And blue light, it seems, isn't the cause. Instead, our eyes are so strained because most of us blink less when we stare at our digital devices. So if eyestrain is the real issue, blue light-blocking glasses are probably of little use.

    A humpback, a kind of big whale, can weigh as much as 40 tons and reach 50 feet from nose to tail. That means they can easily overturn small boats and it can be a great trouble to anyone who jumps on the back of the animal.

    But that was just what Sam Synstelien did when he saw a humpback in trouble in Central California's Morro Bay. The animal was hopelessly tangled (缠绕) in a rope that was attached to a buoy (浮标).

    Synstelien, along with his partner Nicholas Taron, had already tried reporting the poor animal to the U. S. Coast Guard—but they were told it would be hours before rescuers could come. Hours, the fishermen thought, this whale didn't have. "If we wanted the humpback to survive we had to go to get it," Taron later said. "We thought there was no other choice for the whale; we decided to go for it. We were so excited then. I don't think we were that scared. "

    It's easy for Taron to say, of course. His role in the rescue was mostly in the cheering department. In the video, you can hear him shouting "Swim! Swim! Move! Just get it! Get it!" from the side of the boat while filming the entire rescue. "The humpback was just swimming in circles," Taron said. "You could tell it was stressed and being held to the bottom."

    The very agitated whale didn't take well to human intervention (介入) and even hit the boat with its huge tail with a lot of force. But Synstelien hung in there, and at last cut through the rope. And then with a sudden move, the humpback swam deep down beneath the waves. It wasn't much of a thank you, but Synstelien and Taron were happy.

    As the old saying goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover." And neither should we judge movie stars by their ages. At just 21, Elle Fanning made history by becoming the youngest jury (评审团) member at the Cannes Film Festival. This year it lasted from May 14th to May 25th. "I was in complete shock when I got that phone call and that question if I wanted to be a member of the Cannes Jury," Fanning said during a press conference.

    As it turned out, it not only shocked the US actress, but also brought criticism from those who believed Fanning was too young compared to other veterans in the industry. But Fanning's acting experience was in fact a good argument for her jury membership. In fact, Fanning has been a Hollywood fixture for longer than you realize.

    The 21­year­old has been in many big productions. She began acting in I Am Sam at age 2. With lead roles in movies like Super 8, We Bought a Zoo and Maleficent under her belt (取得成功), she's appeared in 60 projects and is one of Hollywood's hottest young stars. Fanning's devotion to work numbers her among the few former child stars who continue to act as adults.

    In her latest movie Teen Spirit, which hit US cinemas last month, Fanning plays a pop singer. Since she had no singing experience, Fanning had to work with Grammy­winning music producer Marius de Vries for three months before the filming started. "I would go to his apartment and sing through all the songs every day," she said. "He videoed me and recorded me singing everything and made me watch it back again and again to improve my skills."

    With such rich acting experience and devotion to her art, "Fanning certainly was able to represent a new class in film" at the Cannes Film Festival.