E-mail has been widely used since its invention for its convenience, efficiency, and high speed. However, it is wise to remember how easily this wonderful technology can be misused, sometimes unintentionally, but can result in serious consequences.

    Now let's look at the case of the Illinois man who left the snow-filled streets of Chicago for a vacation in Florida. His wife was on a business trip and was planning to meet him there the next day. When he reached his hotel , he decided to send his wife a quick E-mail. Unable to find the note with his wife's E-mail address, he did his best to type from his memory. Unfortunately, he missed one letter and his E-mail was directed to an elderly lady whose husband had passed away (去世) only the day before. When the sad widow checked her E-mail, she took one look at the screen, let out a sharp cry, and fell to the floor in a dead faint (昏迷 ). At the sound , her family rushed into the room and saw this note on the screen:

    MY DEAREST WIFE： JUST GOT CHECKED IN. EVERYTHING PREPARED FOR YOUR ARRIVAL TOMORROW.

    P.S. SURE IS HOT DOWN HERE

    China is a land of bicycles.At least it was back in 1992 when I traveled the country.Back then everyone seemed to be riding a bicycle.Cars were fare.Yet since my arrival in Beijing last year,I've found there are millions of cars. However,bicycles are still popular nowadays.People still use their bicycles to get around.For many,it's the most convenient and cheapest way to travel today.

    It's rush quickly through crossroads,move skillfully through traffic,and ride even on sidewalks（人行道）. Bicycles allow people the freedom to move about,which cars just can't provide.Eager to be part of this aspect of Chinese culture,I decided to buy a bicycle.Immediately I got my new bike I jumped up on the seat and started home.

    My first ride home was orderly（守秩序的）.To be safe, I stayed with a "pack" of bikers while cars on the streets came running swiftly out of nowhere at times.I didn't want to get hit.So I took the ride carefully.Crossing the streets was the biggest problem.It was a lot like crossing a major highway back in the United States.The streets here were wide,so crossing took time,skill and a little bit of luck.

    I finally made it home.The feeling on the bicycle was amazing.The air hitting my face and going through my hair was wonderful.I was sitting on top of the world as I passed by places and people.Biking made me feel alive.

    I remember the first time I got on a horse. When I was a little boy aged two, my mom agreed to let me take a short ride and that was it! From then on, I drove my parents crazy begging for a horse.

    When I was four, I had mutism, in which children stop speaking in certain social situations. I went days, weeks, months without a sound at school. At most, I might quietly whisper to a friend. I suffered silently through school until I was ten when a psychologist had an idea. He asked me what I wanted more than anything else in the world. He explained I was going to be given an opportunity to work for that. And I was permitted to whisper the answer in my mother's ear, “A horse.”

    I was to get a horse, but I had to finish many weekly tasks. I had to answer the phone five times per week, something I had never done before. I had to say one word to my teacher at school and the list went on. For a child with mutism, saying one word to someone can be like climbing Mount Qomolangma. I did everything that was asked of me and the day came. His name was Sequoia, whom I fell in love with immediately. When I was with Sequoia, I forgot all about my problems and felt strong and secure.

    I am participating in society these days. My horse and I made it through a master's degree. I feel I owe my life to the horse and I try to give it back to him every day. He has given me the best gift I could ever imagine, my life.

Growing up, I understood one thing about my dad: He knew everything. In my teen years, he taught me things I'd need to know to survive in the real world. How to drive a stick shift. How to check your car tyre's pressure. The correct knife to use to cut a cantaloupe.

When I moved out on my own, I called him at least once a week, usually when something broke in my apartment and I needed to know how to fix it: the toilet, the air-conditioning, the wall, once, when I threw a shoe at a terrifying spider.

But then, eventually, I needed him less. I got married, and my husband had most of the knowledge I lacked about gutter cleaning and water heaters and nondestructive insect removal. For everything else, we had Google. I don't know when it happened, but our conversations when I called turn into six words. Me: "Hi, Dad." Him: "Hi, sweets. Here's Mom."

I loved my dad, of course, but I wondered at times if maybe he had already shared everything I needed to know. Maybe I'd heard all his stories. Maybe, after knowing a man for 40 years, there's nothing left to say. Then, two summers ago, my husband, our four kids and I moved in with my parents for three weeks while our house was being painted. They owned a lake house, and my dad asked me to help him rebuild the bulkhead （舱壁）. It was hard, manual job. We got wet and sandy. But as we put the new bulkhead together piece by piece, my dad knew exactly what went where, I looked at him. "How do you know how to build a bulkhead?" "I spent a summer in college building them on the Jersey Shore.

"You did?" I thought I knew everything about my dad, but I never knew this. I realized that maybe it's not that there's nothing left to say. Maybe it's just that I've spent my life asking him the wrong questions. That day, my dad talked about what he had learned and what he could do excitedly. We chatted and chatted for a long time.

A few weeks later, after my family and I moved back into our painted house, I called my parents. "Hi, sweets," he said. "Here's Mom." "Wait, Dad," I said. "How are you?" We ended up talking about everything he was working on. To anyone else, it would sound like a normal conversation between a dad and his daughter. But to me, it was novel. A new beginning. I spent the first part of my life needing to talk to my dad. Now I talk to him because I want to.

If you are a psychology enthusiast, you have probably heard of the famous marshmallow (棉花糖) test. In this task, kids are given a single treat, such as a marshmallow, and are told that they can eat that marshmallow now, or they can wait a little while, and have two marshmallows instead.

Some kids eat the marshmallow immediately, but most try their best to wait for the experimenter to come back with two marshmallows.

Wait times in the marshmallow test came to be seen as indicators of self-control. But what if the behavior in the marshmallow test has more to do with cultural norms (准则) than self-control? A 2022 study by Yanaoka tested the idea that children may decide how long to wait for rewards based on what they are accustomed to waiting for in their culture. In the United States (with some exceptions), there is no widespread custom of waiting until everyone is served to eat your food. However, in Japan, there is a mealtime custom of waiting until everyone has been served before anyone digs in.

Because of this difference in norms, the researchers assumed that Japanese children would wait longer in the marshmallow test than the American children. This is exactly what they found. The researchers did a clever follow-up experiment. They found one field where children in the U.S. are accustomed to waiting longer than Japanese children are: Opening presents. In the U.S., gifts are usually given on special occasions, such as birthdays and Christmas. On these occasions, children usually have to wait before they can open their presents. In Japan, however, gift-giving happens more often, and children usually open presents immediately.

Given these cultural differences, Yanaoka expected that if they ran the marshmallow test with Japanese and American kids, but they replaced marshmallows with packaged gifts, then American kids would wait longer to open them. Once again, their assumption was correct. When the potential rewards were packaged gifts instead of food, American children waited 15 minutes on average, and Japanese children waited about four minutes on average.

This is a powerful result because it demonstrates the importance of culture and habit in shaping behavior. If a child waits only four minutes before giving up on two marshmallows but then waits almost four times longer to open a gift, can we really say that that child lacks self-control? I don't think so.