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Social media is taking over our lives: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and now, TikTok. These social media platforms have changed from a way to stay connected to an industry where even kids can make money off their posts. While this may seem like another opportunistic innovation, it’s really full of hidden false realities.

The median income (中位收入) recorded in the United States of America was about $63,000 in 2018. TikTokers can make anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 for a TikTok brand partnership, and TikTokers with over a million followers can make up to $30,000 a month—$360,000 a year. They are making more than the average person trying to feed their family and keep a roof over their heads simply by posting a 15-second video.

This is mad in more ways than one. Not only is it an overpaid “job”, it promotes undeserved admiration from viewers and a false sense of reality. Many of these famous TikTokers are still teens and the effects of fame at such an early stage in life might cause issues later in life, such as mental illness. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 make up 27% of TikTok viewers, who can be easily influenced by what they are watching. They can put a false sense of self-value into who they look up to and what they represent: money, fame, being considered conventionally attractive.

While TikTok has become a great tool for marketing, it’s important to understand how this content affects young viewers. If we’re constantly consuming content that shows us all we need to do to be successful is be conventionally attractive and post a 15-second video featuring a new dance, it will challenge our knowledge of what really makes someone successful and will in turn affect our individual work ethnics (伦理). What about the people who miss birthdays and family holidays due to their jobs and aren’t getting paid nearly as much as these TikTokers?

Richard Colyer, president and creator of Metaphor, Inc, had his own view on this issue. “It sounds great that kids can make money for doing the latest dance moves in a 15-second video, but we should feed the minds of kids and not just their bank accounts. TikTok can be great if used properly. Money alone is not good; technology alone is not good and connectedness can be bad if it is only online.”

Again, as a fellow consumer of TikTok, I do enjoy the app when I have some time to kill and need a good laugh. I’m not against someone making a living on entertainment, but what does getting famous by posting a 15-second video teach young people?

When I entered Berkeley, I hoped to earn a scholarship. Having been a Straight-A student, I believed I could _______ tough subjects and really learn something. One such course was World Literature given by Professor Jayne. I was extremely interested in the ideas he _______ in class. When I took the first exam, I was _______ to find a 77, C-plus, on my test paper, for English was my best subject.

I went to Professor Jayne, who listened to my arguments but remained _______. I decided to try harder, although I didn’t know what that means _______ school had always been easy for me. I read the books more carefully, but got another 77. Again, I _______ with Professor Jayne. Again, he listened _______ but wouldn’t change his mind. One more test before the final exam. One more _______ to improve my grade. So I redoubled my efforts and, for the first time, learned the meaning of the word “_______”. But my ________ did no good and everything went as before.

The last hurdle was the final. No matter what grade I got, it wouldn’t cancel three C-pluses. I might as well kiss the ________ goodbye. I stopped working hard. I felt I knew the course material as well as I ever would. The night before the final, I even ________ myself to a movie. The next day I decided for once I’d have fun with a test. A week later, I was surprised to find I got an A. I hurried into Professor Jayne’s office. He ________ to be expecting me. “If I gave you the grade as you expected, you wouldn’t continue to work as hard.” I stared at him, ________ that his analysis and strategy were correct. I had worked my head off, as I had never done before.

I was ________ when my course grade arrived: A-plus. It was the only A-plus given. The next year I received my scholarship. I’ve always remembered Professor Jayne’s lesson: you alone must set your own standard of excellence.

Despite being one of the most famous and frequented attractions in the United States, 1．. Here are a few facts about the Grand Canyon you probably don’t know.

We don’t really know how old it is

It has long been believed that the Colorado River began carving the Grand Canyon about 6 million years ago, 2．. It suggests that the process may have begun as far back as 70 million years. In all likelihood, the Grand Canyon as we know it today started out as a series of smaller canyons 70 million years ago, but the majority of the canyon did not begin to take shape until much more recently.

3．.

Of all Grand Canyon facts, this one is pretty cool—no word-play intended. Sudden changes in altitude have an enormous impact on temperature and rainfall, so the weather you are experiencing could differ dramatically, depending on where you are in the Grand Canyon. The coldest, wettest weather station in the region is the Bright Angel Ranger Station on the North Rim, while the hottest (and one of the driest) is just 8 miles away at Phantom Ranch.

There are lots of fossils in the area

While the dinosaur might have missed out on seeing the Grand Canyon, lots of other fossils have been found. 4．. They vary from ancient marine fossils dating back 1.2 billion years to fairly recent land mammals that left their remains in canyon caves about 10,000 years ago.

Fish are relatively uncommon in the area

Prior to modern flood control measures, the Colorado River provided a uniquely difficult habitat for fish, with heavy mud with small rocks, frequent floods, and temperatures ranging from extreme heat in summer to sub-freezing in winter. Consequently, only eight fish species are native to the Grand Canyon, 5．.

After ten years of working for a Wall Street bank, I determined to go beyond a nine-to-five job. Scanning advertisements, I learned a financial company was to hire more consultants. With great excitement, I made a(n) ______ with a branch president. That day, it went so well that I was ______ he would hire me on the spot ______ , he told me to come back for 12 more interviews with his top salespeople!

Over the next five months, every one of them ______ me from working as a consultant in finance. “You are better off in a safe nine-to-five job.” “Eighty percent of newcomers fail within their first year.” The more they attacked my dream, the more my stomach ______ . I realized I would have to “fake it till I make it”, though.

Eventually, the last interview with the president came. “You’ve got the job!” he announced, and then added, “On one   ______ that you must resign, participate in our training and take an exam.” I accepted. “It’s 250 questions long and you must pass it without one point lost on the first ______ !”

I nearly choked at the prospect of taking a huge leap of faith into the unknown. However, attracted by this great ______ and the courage I had never had, I ______ hard and said, “I’ll take it.”

As instructed, I cut my lifeline to the bank and leapt into ______ waters. After the training, I took the exam and when the scores were displayed, I let out a loud sigh of ______ .

My experience ______ the truth of Thoreau’s words: “If one advances ______ in the direction of his dreams and ______ to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet success ______ in common hours.”

Is future you…you? It might seem like a strange philosophical question. But the answer to how you think about your future self could make the difference between decisions you ultimately find satisfying and ones you might eventually regret.

The brain patterns that emerge on an MRI (核磁共振) when people think about their future selves most resemble the brain patterns that arise when they think about strangers. This finding suggests that, in the mind’s eye, our future selves look like other people. If you see future you as a different person, why should you save money, eat healthier or exercise more regularly to benefit that stranger?

However, if you see the interests of your distant self as more like those of your present self, you are considerably more likely to do things today that benefit you tomorrow. A paper in the journal PLOS One revealed that college students who experienced a greater sense of connection and similarity to their future selves were more likely to achieve academic success. Relationships with our future selves also matter for general psychological well-being. In a project led by Joseph Reiff, which includes 5,000 adults age 20 to 75, he found that those who perceived a great overlap (重叠) in traits between their current and future selves ended up being more satisfied with their lives 10 years after filling out the initial survey.

So how can we better befriend our future selves and feel more connected to their fates? The psychological mindset with what we call “vividness interventions” works. We have found, for instance, that showing people images of their older, grayer selves increases intentions to save for the long term. Besides, you might try writing a letter to—and then from—your future self. As demonstrated by Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson in their 2020 study in the journal Self and Identity, when high-school students engaged in this type of   “send-and-reply” exercise, they experienced elevated levels of feelings of similarity with their future selves.

Letter-writing and visualization exercises are just a couple of ways we can connect with our future selves and beyond, but the larger lesson here is clear: If we can treat our distant selves as if they are people we love, care about and want to support, we can start making choices for them that improve our lives—both today and tomorrow.

High-resolution (高分辨率) satellite imagery has been used to map every single tree in Africa, showing a technique that could help improve the monitoring of deforestation (森林砍伐) across the world. Florian Reiner at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues used images from sate lies to map canopy (树冠) across the entire African continent.

Modern sate lies usually catch tree canopies at a resolution of 30 meters — fine for measuring the size of forests, but less good at mapping individual trees. The satellite data Reiner and his colleagues used had a resolution of 3 meters, enabling the study to map all trees, including those not part of a forest.

The results suggest that 30 percent of all trees in Africa aren’t in a forest and instead are across farmland, savannah and urban areas. “Many countries in Africa lack thick forests, but have a lot of trees.” says Reiner. “These trees are extremely important to the local ecosystems, the people and the economy. By tracking every single tree, researchers can start to monitor how these trees are coping with climate change or whether they are sensitive to deforestation.” It could also improve the monitoring of reforestation efforts, which are growing in popularity as a way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“At a local level, being able to consistently monitor when and where trees are disappearing or reappearing can lead to more actionable insights,” says John Francis at the Alan Turing Institute in London.

“The study is a proof of concept rather than a map ready for immediate commercial use,” says Reiner. “It’s research work. It’s showing what could be done,” he says. But he is already working with colleagues to scale up the tracking approach to cover the entire global canopy: “We’re hoping that this will be seen as a way forward in monitoring tree resources.”