P1, The quiet power of introverts BBC Ideas

I am an introvert and I love it. And I'm not alone. Introverts are everywhere and our quite approach to life, our need for solitary (adj.孤獨的; 孤零零的; 孤單的; 單獨的; 獨自的; 喜歡(或慣于)獨處的; 單個的; 唯一的;n.獨居者; 隱士;) time is a flaw- it's a gift.

But as an introverts it's not always to easy to realise how wonderful you are.

The world feels like a place that rewards extroverts where being loud is mistaken for being confident and happy. Where everyone has something to say , but nobody listens.

A world of open-plan offices, networking parties and big personalities.

For those who speak softly, it's easy to feel left out.

As a child,I blended into the background.

Many thought that I had little to say or that I simply didn't like others.But that wasn't true.

People often think introverts are shy, or antisocial, But these are misconceptions.

Introverts, like anyone ,can find socializing fun. But while parties leave extroverts energised, after some time, introverts need to recharge... away from everyone.

There is a scientific theory for this.

There are two imports chemicals found in all our brains-dopamine and acetylcholine.

Dopamine is like a hit of energy when we take risks or meet new people- and it makes extroverts feel great.

But introverts are more sensitive to dopamine and get quickly over-stimulated.

That's why we prefer the more slow-burn feeling we get when our brains release acetylcholine.

That happens when we concentrate,read , or focus our minds.

It makes us introverts feel relaxed,alert and content.

But it barely registers with(不適合??) extroverts. of course,like anything, it's a sliding scale.

You can lean one way or another. Or be a bit of both- known as an ambivert (n.具有合乎內(nèi)向和外向之間性格的人；具有中間性格的人;)

Now I understand myself better, I am deeply grateful for how I am.

Instead of filling up space with small talk, I listen patiently and make my words matter.

I have few friends but our connection is deep. I love spending time alone.

It's where the chaos of a long day can finally settle.

I can reflect (反思) and listen to my thoughts, and eventually reconnect with myself.

Only after that am I ready to share with the world again.

I have learnt strategies for finding comfort in our noisy world-from using music to creat bubbles of peace to escaping to a quiet park at lunchtime.

I adore the intensity and chaotic beauty of the world. But it's in quiet spaces where I feel truely at home.

If introversion were more valued by society, it could make a massive difference to our collective future.

The unique attributes of introverts really are a deep ,quiet strength.

And as Gandhi, put it,"In a gentle way, you can shake the world."

(Ending -- yes indeed, I am also an introvert and I love myself more!!!!)

P2, Why algorithms are called algorithms (算法)BBC Ideas

We think of algorithm as something new, but the term actually dates back about 900 years.

The world algorithm comes from the name of a Persian mathematical genius, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi.

He was born around 780 AD in the region now known as Uzbekistan.

His name suggests he came from Khwarizm.

Known as al-Khwarizmi, he was director in the House of Wisdom, an intellectual centre for scholars in 9th Century Baghdad.

He made innovation contributions to mathematics, astronomy, geography and cartography wrote an influential book called Concerning the Hindu Art of Reckoning.

3.000 years later, the book was discovered nd translated into Latin.

It introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals (印度阿拉伯數(shù)字)to the West which eventually replaced the unwieldy(adj.笨重的，笨拙的;運轉不靈的;) Roman ones.

The Hindu-Arabic number system, along with the decimal point both described by al-Khwarizmi in his book, are the basis of the numbers weuse throughout the world today.

Al-Khwarizmi's name,when Latinised in the title of the book, became algoritmi. And this is the origin of the word algorithm.

We also have al-Khwarizmi to think for the word algebra, which comes from another of his works.

His books revolutionized the mathematics in the West, showing how complex problems could be broken down into simpler parts and solved.

In medieval Latin, algorismus simply meant the decimal number system.

By the 13th Century, it had become an English word and was used,for example,by Chaucer.

But it wasn't until the late 19th Century that algorithm came to mean a set of step-by-step rules for solving a problem.

In the early part of the 20th Century ,Alan Turing, the British mathematician and computer scientist, worked out how, in theory, a machine culd follow algorithmic instructions and solve complex mathematics.

This was the birth of the computer age.

During World War Two, he built a machine called the Bombe, which used algorithms to crack the Enigma code.

Today algorithm is a fairly common term,even if sometimes you're not exactly sure what an algorithm does.

Algorithms are everywhere now, helping us to get from A to B, driving internet searches, making recommendations of things for us to but , watch or share.

And predicting how we vte ir who we fall in love with.

This little word that orginated in medieval Persia is gradually transforming our lives.

P3, Five ways to stop getting distracted BBC Ideals

Do you ever find youself trying to concentrate and you can't seem to focus?

Why are we so distracted these days？

And is technology the root cause of the problems or is there something deeper going on?

5 ways to distraction-proof your mind

My name is Nir Eyal, and I've spent the last five years researching and writing about the deeper psychology of distraction.

When I found myself struggling with distraction, I decided to do what many people advise and got rid of the distracting technology.

I got myself a flip-phone without any apps.

All it did was phone calls and text messages.

Then I got a word processor from the 1990s without any sort of internet connection.

Unfortunately I found I still got distracted.

I'd starting reading a book from my bookself.

I'd tidy up my desk. I'd take out the trash even, just to avoid the thing that I didn't want to do.

I had only focused on the external triggers-the pings and dings that were leading me towards distraction.

What I hadn't focused on and what turns out to be a much more common source of distraction,are the internal triggers-the uncomfortable emotional states that we seek to escape.

When we're lonely, we check Facebook.

When we're bored, we check the news,stocks prices, sports scores- anything to not feel these uncomfortable sensations that we're not ready to experience.

Here are a few techniques I discovered in my research that could help us stay on track.

1, Plan your day (but not with a to-do list.)

First what you want to do is to make sure you plan your day, two--thirds of people don't keep any sort of calendar, any knid of schedule in their day. well the fact of the matter is if you don't plan your day,somebody is going to plan it for you.

Many of us believe in this myth of the to-do list.

I used to think that just by writing things down they'd get done

But of course I'd go from the day to day recycling the bottom half of my to-do list, because I wasn't making time to do those tasks.

So the best place to start is not with the output of what you want to get done very day,but with the input of how much time you have to devote to every task.

2,Use social media and emial at set times

So distraction has many consequences.One of them is that we find that when someone is interrupted during a task, it can take up to 20 minutes for them to refocus on what they were doing.

Many times we don't even realise how much worse our output is when we....

So check email in one solid block. if you enjoy using social media that's great, but make time for it in your day so it's not something you're only using every time you feel bored or lonely.

3,Surf the urge.

Researchers have found that surfing the urge is an effective way to master our internal triggers.

In a smoking cessation (戒煙)study, researchers found that when they taught smokers how to notice the sensation and be mindful of what they were experiencing,they became much likely to stop smoking.

By surfing the urge and noticing what it is that we're experiencing and allowing that sensation to crest n(.山頂; 頂峰; 波峰; 浪尖; (尤指象征歷史悠久家族、機構等的)飾章，紋章; 鳥冠; 羽冠;v.到達山頂(或浪峰); 到達洪峰; 達到頂點;) and then subside (vi.減弱; 消退; 平息; 沉降; 下沉; 減退; 趨于平靜; 回落; 下陷;) kind of like how a surfer might surf a wave- we allow that emotion, that uncomfortable internal trigger, to crest and then pass.

4, Beware of "liminal "(adj.閾限的;)moments

The next thing that we want to do is be careful of liminal moment.

Liminal moments are these periods of time when we are transitioning from one task to the other.

So for example if you star checking your email on the wat back from a meeting and you're finally at your desk and you keep checking your email instead of getting to the task at hand well now that liminal moment has turnbed into a distraction. so becareful of those times when you're transitioning from one task to the next.

5, Remember you're not powerless

Astudy of alcoholics found that the number one determinant of whether someone would stay sober after a rehabilitation programme was not their level of physical dependency, it wasn't what was happening in their body, in fact it was what was happening in their minds. the people who were most likely to stay sober (adj.未醉; 持重的; 冷靜的; 素凈的; 淡素的;v.(使)變得持重，變得冷靜;)were thoes who believed that they had the power to stop.

So when we think that technology is hijacking (V 劫持ing形式)our brains or it's addicting everyone, we are making it more likely that we won't be able to put technology distractions in their place , so don;t believe this lie that there's nothing we can do.

Clearly there's so much we can do to help make sure that we get the best out of these products without letting them get the best of us.

P4 Why people are choosing to quit social media BBC Ideas

I am not sure that other people on the Tube woukd be happy, but I look at other people more.

I like to observe , have a look at what someone's wearing, you know, image what sorts of person they would be.

Just try and live in the moment a bit more.

That's right, No facebook, no twitter. No Insgram, no WhatsApp.

Anti-social- the people not on social media

What triggered it was a break up. I think when something like that happens, you need to just let someone die a social media death and just remove them from your life.

And then I realized that actually they weren't that useful to me anyway, so I just went the whole hog and didn't bother using them ever again.

The point about the social media is the additiveness.

Noboday really wants to spend hours and hours every day updating their status and seeing what other people think about them.

Noboday consciously wants to do that, but those behaviours are themselves addictive behaviours.

Once you're trapped in that loop it's very head to break out.

It's not that we want to o back to some idyllic past - an Eden before the machines existed.

It's that we need to take control of these machines and use them for their proper ends

36% of the UK population is not active on social media

the bading things is that you think people's lives are much fun than your own life.

When I'm the bus, I just see people like zombies and I 'm like, ' aright , it's a sunny dat. There is something to see, not only your phone.

I like to be present when I share something about myself with someone, so I can get their feedback and either stop right there or tell them the story behind it, or give context, sometimes I might withhold a certain opinion rater than being rapid fire, because maybe it requires a bit nuance, And maybe the best thing is not for me to just shoot my mouth off online because some headline made me angry.

The thing is , the word is real, whether we want to believe it or not. and it's really important for us to have a sense of where we are in that world .

I don't like to use the term social media , at the end of day. because it implies that it's designed to promote social behaviours when usually it's designed to promote the amout of attention that were giving it.

In order grab our attention-because there's so much competition-design has to appeal to the lower parts of us, to the non-rational, automatic, implusive parts of us.

And so this is why we get things like clickbait, like sensationlism-things that appeal to our outrage. and there's whole industry of consultants, of psychologists who are helping designers reallu punch the right buttons in our brains so that we do keep coming bak for more and we do stay hooked on products.

And the end of the day, they're advertising systems, not really social platforms

63% of the global population is not active on social media -4.8 billion people.

some of them take social breaks quite a lot anyway, so it's not like I'm doing something that's particularly divergent, but they think it's a good thing.

I think they realise, we all realise, that we look at memes too much,we use insgram too much. it's just whether we realize that and do something about it.

There are things that give us instant pleasure and they're like the more gluttonous (adj.貪吃的; 食量大的; 貪嘴的) things like food and sex and stuff like that, and they give us a really high spike of pleasure.

But the things that are the most worthwhile are the things that you spend a lot of time on.

So playing the piano is not pleasant to begin with but you get a much steady wave of satisfaction, so it dose matter, because the pleasures that are sometimes the most time-consuming or the ones that take the most work can be the ones that are the most fulfilling.

Those are the pleasures that are self-actualizing that help you realize a part of yoursef that you dind't have.