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(身份) 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 Daily quoted 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, Qilu 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.

    One of my wonderful memories is about a Christmas gift. Unlike other gifts, it came without wrap(包装).

    On September 11th, 1958, mum gave birth to Richard. After she brought him home from hospital, she put him in my arms, saying, “I promised you a gift, and here it is.” What an honor! I became four years old a month earlier and none of my friends had such a baby doll of their own. I played with it day and night. I sang to it. I told stories. I told it again and again how much I loved it!

    One morning, however, I found its bed empty. My doll was gone! I cried for it. Mum wept(哭泣) and told me that the poor little thing had been sent to a hospital. It had a fever. For several days, I heard mum and dad whispering such words as “hopeless”, “pitiful”and “dying”, and all these words sounded ominous.

    Christmas was coming. “Don't expect any presents this year,” Dad said, pointing at the socks I hung in the living rooms. “If your baby brother lives, that'll be Christmas enough.” As he spoke, his eyes filled with tears. I had never seen him cry before.

    The phone rang early on Christmas morning. Dad jumped out of bed to answer it. From my bedroom I heard him say, “What? He's all right?”He hung up and shouted upstairs. “The hospital said we can bring Richard home!”

    “Thank God!” I heard mum cry.

    From the upstairs window, I watched my parents rush out to the car. I had never seen them so happy. And I was also full of joy. What a wonderful day! My baby doll would be home. I ran downstairs. My socks still hung there flat. But I knew they were not empty：they were filled with love!

    Many little girls like flowers, watching butterflies and riding small horses. A lot of them also like cars, robots and spaceships. But most girls' clothing only has pictures of flowers, butterflies or horses.

    Two mothers decided to make clothes that include all the things that little girls do and love.

    Six-year-old Bella loves to play with cars. So her dress has pictures of cars on it.

    “We haven't found this type of dress in the store,” Cathy, Bella's mother, says.

    The car dress is from a new girl's clothing line called Princess Awesome. Rebecca Melsky set up the business. She says its products (产品) for girls have some designs normally found on boys' clothes.

    It all started two years ago when Rebecca was hoping to buy clothing for her two-year-old, who liked robots, trucks and spaceships.

    “One day when I walked through a girls' store. I thought to myself I wish they'd make one of those beautiful dresses that also have a robot on it because she will love that. And I thought someone should do that. Maybe I should do that.” Rebecca said.

    Her friend Eva St. Clair believed she should, and their business was born. The women sold the first 70 dresses they made at a market. So they decided to expand(扩展）their business online. Their products sold very well there, too.

    “They sold out so fast that I could not make them fast enough. We decided it was time to think about a factory,” Rebecca said.

    So they started to raise money from people over the Internet. The women raised more than $215,000 within days, far more than the $35,000 they expected.

    “Our biggest challenge (挑战) is going to be how we expand as rapidly as people seem to want us to,” Rebecca said.

    The women hope Princess Awesome will expand into products for girls of all ages and all interests.

    Now many young people are traveling around the world on their own, not because they have no one to travel with, but because they prefer to go alone.

    Kristina Wegscheider from California first traveled alone when she was at college and believes that it is something everyone should do at least once in their life. “It opens up your mind to new things and pushes you out of your comfort zone.” Wegscheider has visited 46 countries covering all seven continents.

    In foreign countries, with no one to help you read a map, look after you if you get ill, or lend you money if your wallet is stolen, it is challenging. This is what drives young people to travel alone. It is seen as character building and a chance to prove that they can make it on their own.

    Chris Richardson decided to leave his sales job in Australia to go traveling last year. He set up a website, The Aussie Nomad, to document his adventures. He says he wished he had traveled alone earlier. “The people you meet, the places you visit, or the things you do, everything is up to you and it forces you to grow as a person,” said the 30-year-old man.

    Richardson describes traveling alone like “a shot in the arm”, which “makes you a more confident person that is ready to deal with anything”. He said, “The feeling of having overcome something on my own is a major part of what drives me each day when I'm dealing with a difficult task. I walk around with my head up because I know deep down inside that nothing is impossible if you try.”

    The great 19^thcentury explorer John Muir once said, “Only by going alone in silence can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness.”

    The writings of Shakespeare are today little read by young people in Britain. His young readership is limited to those who choose to study literature at university.

    Shakespeare's work, together with most other classics, is seen as remote, and written in a 400­year­old version of English that is about as inviting as toothache.

    Still, in Britain schools, it is compulsory to study the bard(诗人), and when something is made compulsory, usually the result is boredom, resentment(憎恨) or both.

    This was my experience of the classics at school. But when I reached my late teenage years, I had a change of heart. Like every other young person since the dawn of time, the world confused me. I wanted answers, so I turned to books to find them.

    I went on to take a PhD in literature and have taught it in Britain and China. I have never regretted it. There is something in literature that people want, even if they don't read books. You see this in the popularity of TV and movie adaptations of great works, the recent film version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice being a case in point. These popular adaptations may help increase people's interest in the classics.

    Reading a simplified Romeo and Juliet may perhaps lead to a reading of Shakespeare's actual play. If that is the case, then I welcome the trend. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it is the same thing. Shakespeare is a poet. His greatness is in his language. Reading someone else's rewriting of his work is like peeling a banana, throwing away the fruit, and eating the skin. Take on the original. It really is worth the effort.

    People who often eat nuts appear to live longer, according to the latest study of its kind. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggested the greatest benefit was in those eating them on their daily diet.

    Eating nuts was linked to a healthier lifestyle including being less likely to smoke or be overweight and more likely to exercise. The British Heart Foundation said more research was needed to prove the link, “While this is an interesting link, we need further research to make sure if it's the nuts that protect heart health, or other sides of people's lifestyle .”

    The study followed nearly 120,000 people for 30 years. The more regularly people ate nuts, the less likely they were to die during the study. People eating nuts once a week were 11% less likely to have died during the study than those who never ate nuts. Lead researcher Dr. Charles Fuchs, from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, said, “The most obvious benefit was a decrease of 29%in deaths from heart disease, but we also saw a significant reduction-11%- in the danger of dying from cancer.”

    They suggest nuts are lowering cholesterol(胆固醇). and insulin resistance(胰岛素抗性). Nuts contain unsaturated fat(不饱和脂肪), protein(蛋白质) and several kinds of vitamins and minerals and they can take the place of snacks like chocolate bars, cakes and biscuits.

    Victoria Taylor, senior expert at the British Heart Foundation, said, “This study shows close connection between regularly eating a small handful of nuts and a lower risk of death from heart disease.” Choosing plain, unsalted foods rather than sweet, salted, or chocolate-covered will keep your salt and sugar intake down.