If you’re reading this, it’s safe to assume you arrived by internet.

Maybe you caught the headline as it raced by on Twitter. Or you might be taking a break from watching a boring movie on Netflix.

It doesn’t matter. Because according to a new study, it all adds up to the same thing: one distraction（分心的事情）after another.

And the thing is, they’re welcome distractions. Because, as the research — published this week in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — notes, people will do just about anything to avoid being left to their own thoughts.

For their study, researchers designed a sample test for more than 2,557 participants in 11 countries. They divided their test subjects into two groups. In the first group, people were asked to spend 10 to 15 minutes “entertaining themselves with their thoughts as best they could.”

Just sit back and think about things. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, not really. The second group — the one where people were told to surf the Net, play a video game, or even read a book — reported having much more fun. They scored more highly on entertainment and lower on boredom. And the preference for distraction seemed to be a global phenomenon, which may come as a surprise to Italians who are famously brilliant at doing nothing.

“The preference for doing external（外部的）activities such as reading, watching TV, or surfing the internet rather than ‘just thinking’ appears to be strong throughout the world,” the researchers note in the study.

But there does seem to be an important thing that hasn’t been included in the study. Shouldn’t the quality of thoughts matter? If you’ve got something positive to think about — say, how you’re going to spend your vacation or the great screenplay you’ve already half-written in your head — why are you reading this?

On the other hand, if you are always bothered by negative thoughts — a sad or painful experience, perhaps — by all means, keep scrolling（翻网页）.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to take up much of your time here; it’s a short study that gets to the point in a hurry. Don’t worry though. There’s a whole world of distractions out there. Say, have you seen that ship teetering at the brink of Niagara Falls? And how about those charming cows? Bet you didn’t know they could smell you from six miles away.

And that’s something to think about.

We live in a time when technology has enabled everyone to be a journalist. Yet not everyone has the proper training. Whether out of ignorance or out of a sense of honor, some of the journalism online has done a better job of changing public opinion than showing the whole truth.

Two recent stories are perfect reminders of the difference between the urge to change minds and basic journalism ethics(道德标准).

“A college kid took some birds from a nearby tree and was sentenced to 10 years in prison,” went a recent online headline from the Chinese Internet. The accompanying vote showed that 85 percent of respondents sided with the student. Some joked that most boys would be guilty of such a crime because everyone had stolen birds when they were children.

Left out of the original report was the fact that the birds in question were falcons, which are on the nation’s list of protected, endangered species. Birdwatchers also said that it was unlikely Yan Xiaotian, the 21-year-old defendant, had found the 12 birds in one tree. For this particular species, he had to search a much larger area.

For me, the most important questions are: Did he know it was illegal before he took the birds and did he know that before he sold them?

Follow-up reporting has found that the evidence showed that Yan knew what he was doing. The only point of uncertainty is the very first time he took the first birds when he could be unaware of their status and value. As a matter of fact, the prosecutor(公诉人) started out asking for a light punishment, but took a U-turn when data from Yan’s cellphone clearly showed that he had stolen them.

The punishment, while sounding harsh, followed the law almost to the letter. The court has since said it would review the case, a sign of giving in to public pressure.

Let’s look at the second story, which can be read as either “Elderly man had to walk in his shorts for hours in Sanya after his bike was taken by the city’s quasi-police”(城管) or “Retired official illegally parked his bike for a swim and made the city apologize and fire a low-paid city management staff member”.

Both played up(渲染) different parts of the same story. For me, Bi Guochang’s age and former official title are not relevant to the case. The key is whether he indeed parked his bike illegally and whether proper procedures were being followed by taking it away and making him get it back. Yet the reports focused on the image of an old man walking only in his shorts. He could have phoned his family for backup or taken a taxi home first before complaining, as most would do in that situation.

Such stories read like badly-written morality tales, with everything in black and white and a simple yes-or-no message. Real life is much more complicated. Reporters have to be neutral and avoid taking sides too early.

①A group of 41 states and the District of Columbia began a legal case against Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, insisting that the company knowingly used features on its platforms to cause children to overuse them. The accusations in the lawsuit raise a deeper question about behavior: Are young people becoming addicted to social media and the internet? Here’s what the research has found.

②David Greenfield, a psychologist and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction in West Hartford, Conn, said the devices tempt users with some powerful approaches. One is “intermittent reinforcement,” which creates the idea that a user could get a reward at any time. But when the reward comes is unpredictable. Adults are easily influenced, be noted, but young people are particularly at risk, because the brain regions that are involved in resisting temptation and reward are not nearly as developed in children and teenagers as in adults. Moreover, the adolescent brain is especially accustomed to social connections, and social media is all a perfect opportunity to connect with other people.

③For many years, the scientific community typically defined addiction in relation to substances, such as drugs, and not behaviors, such as gambling or internet use. That has gradually changed. In 2013, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official reference for mental health conditions, introduced the idea of internet gaming addiction.

④A subsequent study explored broadening the definition to “internet addiction.” The author suggested further exploring diagnostic criteria and the language, for instance, noting that terms like “problematic use” and even the word “internet” were open to broad interpretation, given the many forms the information and its delivery can take.

⑤Dr. Michael Rich, the director of the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, said he discouraged the use of the word “addiction” because the internet, if used effectively and with limits, was not merely useful but also essential to everyday life.

⑥Greenfield agreed that there clearly are valuable uses for the internet and that the definition of how much is too much can vary. But he said there also were obvious cases where immoderate use disturbs school, sleep and other vital aspects of a healthy life. “Too many young consumers can’t put it down, ” he said.“ The internet, including social media like Meta, are the drugs affecting the mind.”