Recently, a cartoon created by studentsfrom 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 mobilephone. A chain of similar events eventually leads to the destruction of theworld.

    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 cellphone 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 cellphones for long periods of time will damage your eyesight gradually, accordingto 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 cellphones 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.

    Not so long ago, most people didn't know who Shelly Ann Francis Pryce was going to become. She was just an average high school athlete. There was every indication that she was just another Jamaican teenager without much of a future. However, one person wants to change this. Stephen Francis observed then eighteen-year-old Shelly Ann as a track meet and was convinced that he had seen the beginning of true greatness. Her time were not exactly impressive, but even so, he seemed there was something trying to get out, something the other coaches had overlooked when they had assessed her and found her lacking. He decided to offer Shelly Ann a place in his very strict training seasons. Their cooperation quickly produced results, and a few year later at Jamaica's Olympic games in early 2008, Shelly Ann, who at that time only ranked number 70 in the world, beat Jamaica's unchallenged queen of the sprint(短跑).

    “Where did she come from?” asked an astonished sprinting world, before concluding that she must be one of those one-hit wonders that spring up from time to time, only to disappear again without signs. But Shelly Ann was to prove that she was anything but a one-hit wonder. At the Beijing Olympic she swept away any doubts about her ability to perform consistently by becoming the first Jamaican woman ever to win the 100 meters Olympic gold. She did it again one year on at the World Championship in Briton, becoming world champion with a time of 10.73—the fourth record ever.

    Shelly-Ann is a little woman with a big smile. She has a mental toughness that did not come about by chance. Her journey to becoming the fastest woman on earth has been anything but smooth and effortless. She grew up in one of Jamaica's toughest inner-city communities known as Waterhouse, where she lived in a one-room apartment, sleeping four in a bed with her mother and two brothers. Waterhouse, one of the poorest communities in Jamaica, is a really violent and overpopulated place. Several of Shelly-Ann's friends and family were caught up in the killings; one of her cousins was shot dead only a few streets away from where she lived. Sometimes her family didn't have enough to eat. She ran at the school championships barefooted because she couldn't afford shoes. Her mother Maxime, one of a family of fourteen, had been an athlete herself as a young girl but, like so many other girls in Waterhouse, had to stop after she had her first baby. Maxime's early entry into the adult world with its responsibilities gave her the determination to ensure that her kids would not end up in Waterhouse's roundabout of poverty. One of the first things Maxime used to do with Shelly-Ann was taking her to the track, and she was ready to sacrifice everything.

    It didn't take long for Shelly-Ann to realize that sports could be her way out of Waterhouse. On a summer evening in Beijing in 2008, all those long, hard hours of work and commitment finally bore fruit. The barefoot kid who just a few years previously had been living in poverty, surrounded by criminals and violence, had written a new chapter in the history of sports.

    But Shelly-Ann's victory was far greater than that. The night she won Olympic gold in Beijing, the routine murders in Waterhouse and the drug wars in the neighboring streets stopped. The dark cloud above one of the world's toughest criminal neighborhoods simply disappeared for a few days. “I have so much fire burning for my country,” Shelly said. She plans to start a foundation for homeless children and wants to build a community centre in Waterhouse. She hopes to inspire the Jamaicans to lay down their weapons. She intends to fight to make it a woman's as well as a man's world.

    As Muhammad Ali puts it, “Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them. A desire, a dream, a vision.” One of the things Shelly-Ann can be proud of is her understanding of this truth.

    You are a new manager at the American branch of your German firm in Chicago. With a few minutes to spare between meetings, you go to get a quick cup of coffee.

    "Hey, David, how are you?" one of the senior partners at the firm asks you.

    "Good, thank you, Dr. Greer," you reply. You've really been wanting to make a connection with the senior leadership at the firm, and this seems like a great opportunity. But as you start to think of something to say, your American colleague breaks in to steal your spotlight.

    "So Arnold", your colleague says to your boss, in such a casual manner that it makes your German soul cringe(畏缩), "So what's your Super bowl prediction? I mean, you're a Niners fan, right?"

    The conversation moves on, and you walk silently back to your desk with your coffee. You know how important small talk is in the U.S., and you feel jealous of people who can do it well.

    There's nothing small about the role that small talk plays in American professional culture. People from other countries are often surprised at how important small talk is in the U.S. and how naturally and comfortably people seem to do it —— with peers, men, women, and even with superiors. You can be the most technically skilled worker in the world, but your ability to progress in your job in the United States is highly dependent on your ability to build and maintain positive relationships with people at work. And guess what skill is critical for building and maintaining these relationships? Small talk.

    What can you do if you are from another culture and want to learn to use small talk in the U.S. to build relationships and establish trust? Work hard to hone(磨练) your own version of American-style small talk. Watch how others do it. You don't have to imitate what they do; in fact, that would likely backfire because people would see you as inauthentic(假的,不可信的). But if you can develop your own personal version, that can go a long way toward making you feel comfortable and competent.

    It's well-known that meditation (冥想) has many benefits, but do you know how to practice it for a beginner?

    Set a proper scene

    Find a space for meditation. It should be private and quiet. Make sure the temperature is comfortable. Sit on a cushion (垫子) if the floor is uncomfortable. You may play soft music if you like.
                   

    Take a moment to loosen up. Remember that the goal of meditation is to relax. Loosen your clothing, remove your shoes and have a good stretch. Do your best to ease any muscle tension that might keep you from achieving relaxation. Make an effort to relax your facial muscles.

    Focus on your breath

    Sit down in the space you've prepared. Close your eyes and breathe. Each time you breathe in, count “one”. Each time you breathe out, count “one”. The idea is to strengthen being in the moment — the last breath doesn't matter, and the next one doesn't matter; only this one matters.

    Feel your breath inflate (胀大) your lungs and push on your diaphragm (隔膜). Feel how sweet it is to inhale the fresh air. As you do this, your body will gradually begin to relax and all of your attention will be centered within your mind.

    Return to real life

    Once you feel fully centered in your mind, allow yourself to gradually drift back to real life. Move your fingers and toes and slowly wake your body up. Open your eyes and remain there for a few minutes until your senses come back, and then slowly stand up.

    Even if you can't make it fully into your mind, you still get some benefits from it. If you want to feel better, you just need to practice. Set about 10 minutes around the same time every day and repeat this exercise.

    Hundreds of villagers took matters into their own hands by digging miles of trenches（沟壕）to install their own cables(电缆). The tiny village in Michaelston - y - Fedw, with a population of 300, clubbed together after being unable to download films, stream music or connect to online banking. Farmers, teachers and even the village pub owners put in thousands of hours of volunteering to dig miles of trenches and now have super fast broadband(宽带).

    The project cost around ￡250,000 with villagers paying￡150,000 of their own money to secure their super fast connection speed. They were also able to obtain￡100,000 from EU funding and the Welsh Government Access Broadband Cymru scheme.

    The idea was produced in the local pub when villagers were complaining about their Wi-Fi connections. Ben Longman, owner of the Cefn Mably Arms, said, "We were in the pub and we were all complaining about how bad the Wi-Fi was. I had just paid for high speed broadband and realized it would not work."

    One of the organizers, Carina Dunk, 61, said it was fantastic what the village had achieved. She said, "It used to take a few days to download a film; now it takes less than a minute. Communities have tended to be more distant and separated but not here anymore. Sometimes we have to take a step back and achieve something."

    A year after the project, most of the 300 villagers are now united in a 1,000mps broadband connection.

    However, Richard Raybould, 59, is still waiting for his house to be connected on the edge of the village and said he cannot wait. He said, "It is amazing what skills people in the community have. There are experts and farmers who dig trenches. I have met at least 30 people who I had never spoken to before."