It was Mother's Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Tenyson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her head on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.

    Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. He said to me, “Mum, it's not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”

    At the front of the supermarket a charity(慈善) group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should buy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he'd come up with such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can't take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”

    By now paramedics（救援人员）had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became intimidated by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her. Instead I gave the flower to the woman's husband and told him, “ My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”

    At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son. Happy Mother's Day to you.”

    The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.

    Most painters discover a style of painting that is fit for them and stick to that, especially if people admire their pictures. But Picasso, the great Spanish painter, was like a man who had not yet found his own particular style of painting. He kept on struggling to find the perfect expression till his death in 1973.

    Some of Picasso's paintings are rich, soft colored and beautiful. Others are ugly and cruel and strange. But such paintings allow us to imagine things for ourselves. They force us to say to ourselves, “What does he see that makes him paint like that?” And we begin to look under the surface of the things we see.

    Picasso painted thousands of pictures in different styles. Sometimes he painted the natural look of things. Sometimes he seemed to break them apart and throw the pieces in our faces. He showed us what the mind knows as well as what the eyes see. At the age of 90,he remained as curious about the world as he had been when he was young. That is why people have called him “the youngest painter in the world.”

    Plants are helpful to human: they provide us with wood and other products, they give us shade, and they help to prevent drought and floods.

    Sadly, in many parts of the world man has not realized that the third of these services is the most important. In his eagerness to draw quick profit from the trees, he has cut them down in large numbers, only to find that without them he has lost the best friends he had.

    Several thousand years ago a rich and powerful country cut down its trees to build warships, with which to gain itself an empire. It gained the empire but, without its trees, its soil became hard and poor. When the empire fell to pieces, the country found itself faced by floods and starvation.

    Even if a government realizes the importance of a plentiful supply of trees, it is difficult for it to persuade the villager to see this. The villager wants wood to cook his food with, and he can earn money by making charcoal(木炭) or selling wood to the townsman. He is usually too lazy or too careless to plant and look after trees. So unless the government has a good system of control, or can educate the people, the forests will slowly disappear.

    This does not only mean that the villagers? Sons and grandsons have fewer trees. The results are even more serious. For where there are trees their roots break the soil up—allowing the rain to sink in and also hold the soil, thus preventing it being washed away easily, but where there are no trees, the soil becomes hard and poor. The rain falls on hard ground and flows away on the surface, causing floods and carrying away with it the rich topsoil, in which crops grow so well. When all the topsoil is gone, nothing remains but a worthless desert.

    In this Pennsylvania city, Pittsburgh is shrinking but getting wealthier. Since 2000, its population has declined by 95,000 while its income per capita (人均) has shot up 24 percent. The trend is taking hold in many other cities, like Buffalo in New York, Providence in Rhode Island and New Orleans.

    Some of these areas have created more high-paying jobs in energy, health care or education. Others have managed to reshape their producing industry for a new economy. Higher-paying jobs have a greater effect because they create demand for additional services. "The story in Pittsburgh is very positive, and other areas are looking at it as an example of the transformation that might be possible," said Guhan Venkatu, who wrote an economic history of the area called “Rust and Renewal" for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

    Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have helped bring tech jobs and innovation(革新) to the area by sponsoring tech centers that help graduates start companies without moving to Silicon Valley or San Francisco. This has helped keep Pittsburgh's educated young population growing even as the entire population in the city has dropped.

    Pittsburgh has more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs than other shrinking cities, about 80, 000 or 7% of all jobs. STEM jobs add productivity and income growth to the area. Manufacturers of high-tech medical equipment in the Pittsburgh area also have doubled employment in the last 10 years.

    However, some experts question whether growing income per capita can really make up for a declining population. According to Patrick Adler, a researcher at the University of Toronto, population loss does matter if it means lower-skilled workers have fled because of a lack of opportunity. What's more, high-paying jobs in education and health care can disappear if the population declines too greatly. So it'd be wise to find ways to increase the population.

    No. 1 Snapchat

    With this app, the pictures people share with friends will disappear automatically(自动地) after they are seen. Snapchat has become more and more popular since 2012. Over 700 million photos have been shown daily by May 2014, up from 20 million per day in 2012.

    No. 2 Uber

    The on-demand car service app allows users to order a ride and get picked up within minutes. On-demand service means no need to reserve (预订) and no waiting in taxi queues. And the app can be used in more than 40 countries.

    No. 3 WhatsApp

    WhatsApp became the world's most popular chat app in 2014 with over 600 million monthly users in August. It was also bought by Facebook in October for about $ 22 billion (about 136 billion yuan).

    No. 4 Venmo

    The mobile payment service is used to share bills by friends, who get together to have dinner or do something else. It took Millennials' (生于1984-1995年间的"千禧一代") smart-phones by storm in 2014. It is said that among college students the word "Venmo" is now being used as a verb—"just Venmo me".

    The idea behind Facebook is to make us feel connected all the time. But in my research, I've found that the truth is quiet different.

    Technology, it turns out, has made being alone seem like a problem that needs soling. When young people are alone, even for a minute or two, they feel the need to connect to get on Facebook or some other social networks and chat. But in connecting, they often end up feeling more isolated. Why? Because by being in constant (不断的) connection, they lose the ability to feel satisfied with their own company (独处).

    Facebook can help us keep in touch with our friends, but we too often use it instead of spending face to face time with them. And since we feel the need to keep up with them online, we don't have moments of loneliness where we can collect our thoughts and learn how to be comfortable being alone.

——Sherry Turkle, Profescer

    Facebook connects more of us to more of our friends and family in more places than we have ever been connected before. Yes. Facebook is a huge time sink -maybe the biggest ever. Many people post useless stuff. And seeing too much of your friends lives can make you jealous (嫉妒的), but it won't make you lonely.

    Jane, a former student of mine, who is back in New York after living abroad for ten years told me that Facebook helps her a lot. The first time she moved back to New York from abroad, she felt disconnected from her family and friends. now because of lots of photos and information updates (更新), she knows what is happening with her friends all the time.

    In fact, if you are lonely in real life, you will be lonely online as well.

——Sree Steniveasan, Chief Digital office