A new checkout trend (趋势) is sweeping across America, making for an increasingly awkward experience: digital tip jars.

You order a coffee, an ice cream, a salad or a slice of pizza and pay with your credit card or phone. Then, a worker standing behind the counter turns a touch screen and slides it in front of you. The screen has a few suggested tip amounts — usually 10%, 15% or 20%. The worker is directly across from you. Other customers are standing behind, waiting impatiently and looking over your shoulder to see how much you tip. And you must make a decision in seconds.

Customers and workers today are faced with a completely different tipping culture compared to just a few years ago — without any clear norms. Although consumers are used to tipping waiters and other service workers, tipping a cashier may be a new phenomenon for many shoppers. It’s being driven in large part by changes in technology that have enabled business owners to more easily shift (转移) the costs of compensating (补偿) workers directly to customers.

In addition, customers were encouraged to tip generously during the past two years to help keep restaurants and stores running, raising expectations. Total tips for full-service restaurants were up 25% during the latest quarter compared to a year ago, while tips at quick-service restaurants were up 17%, according to data from Square.

The shift to digital payments also sped up, leading stores to replace dated cash tip jars with tablet touch screens. But these screens and the procedures for digital tipping have proven more intrusive than a low-pressure cash tip jar with a few dollars in it. Some people walk away from the screen on purpose without doing anything to avoid making a decision.

There is a widespread belief among sleep researchers that many people, especially young adults, regularly obtain skimpy sleep due to work, school, and social activities. The move toward remote work and school has provided a novel opportunity to test this belief.

A new study compared self-reported data on sleep habits from 80 students enrolled in a 2020 summer session course with data collected from 450 students enrolled in the same course during previous summer semesters and suggests that students learning remotely went to bed an average of 30 minutes later than pre-pandemic (疫情前) students. They slept less efficiently, less at night and more during the day, but did not sleep more overall despite the time saved working or attending social events. Actually, they have no early classes and 44 per cent fewer work days compared to students in previous semesters.

One very consistent finding is a collective delay of sleep timing—people go to bed and wake up later. Not surprisingly, there is also a marked reduction in natural light exposure, especially early in the day. The lack of change in sleep time was a bit of a surprise, as it goes against the assumption that young adults would sleep more if they had the time.

Self-described night owls (夜猫子) were more likely to report a greater positive effect on their sleep, getting to sleep in, instead of waking up early for that morning class, while morning types were more likely to report a negative response to sleeping later than usual.

Sleep plays an important role in immune (免疫的) functioning and mental health, which is why good sleep habits are important. Students and anybody working from home should try to get outside and work out early in the day because the morning light helps strengthen their regular sleep wake cycle—this should improve their sleep, and allow them to feel more rested and energized during the day.

The Bay Area is among the most diverse places in the country, a wonderful place filled with people of every background. Each of them brings something different to the mix, and takes it from their own experience. Their stories are the focus of Status Update, an exhibition ( 展览会) of 14 projects offered by Rian Dundon and former WIRED contributor Pete Brook. The show at SOMArts uses personal tales to show the Bay Area’s culture.

The Bay Area is a microcosm of the national melting pot, a place where people of color comprise (组成) 58 percent of the overall population and are a majority in four of the region’s five counties. San Francisco in particular is the type of place where you can’t walk down the street without hearing another language. Yet the change is not all for the better. The gap between rich and poor is widening at a frightening pace (速度), and San Francisco is becoming less diverse as minorities escape the city for more affordable communities elsewhere in the region.

Status Update reflects these changes and the challenges they bring. Joseph Rodriguez’s Faces of Foreclosure features quiet images of people like Ethel Gist, a 68-year-old woman who lost her home in the East Bay suburb of Brentwood six years ago. Photographer Sam Wolson records Oakland resident Shannon Fulcher and his efforts to provide for his daughter. And Laura Morton documents millennials (千禧一代) hoping to make their way to the top in Silicon Valley in her series Wild West Tech. The mix of mediums, styles and subject matter within the exhibit stresses the region’s great diversity of experiences and how they shape each other.

Status Update starts a conversation about how the Bay Area is changing, and what people can do to build up a more just society. “I hope people walk away from this show with a little more humility (谦逊) and respect for our neighbors and communities and the ways we depend on one another,” Dundon says. “We’re all out here together.”