The Art of Slow Reading

If you are reading this article in print, chances are that you will only get through half of what I have written. And if you are reading this online, you may not even finish a fifth. 【小题1】 They suggest that many of us no longer have the concentration to read articles through to their conclusion.

So are we getting stupider? Actually, our online habits are damaging the mental power we need to process and understand textual information. Round-the-clock news makes us read from one article to the next without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content. Our reading is frequently interrupted by the noise of the latest email and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts. 【小题2】 But we are gradually forgetting how to sit back, think carefully, and relate all the facts to each other.

【小题3】 A desperate bunch of academics want us to take our time while reading, and re-reading. They ask us to switch off our computers every so often and rediscover both the joy of personal engagement with printed texts, and the ability to process them fully. What's to be done then? Most slow readers realize that total rejection of the web is extremely unrealistic. They feel that getaway from technology for a while is the answer. 【小题4】 Personally, I'm not sure whether I could ever go offline for long. Even while writing this article, I am switching constantly between sites, skimming too often, absorbing too little. Internet reading has become too rooted in my daily life for me to change. I read essays and articles not in hard copy but as PDFs. I suspect that many readers are in a similar position. 【小题5】 You can download a computer application called Freedom, which allows you to read in peace by cutting off your Internet connection. Or if you want to avoid being disturbed by the Internet, you could always download offline reader Instapaper for your iPhone. If you're still reading my article, that is slow reading.

Can computer technology be used to steal an election? For the most part, innovative technologies promise to make people’s lives easier and more comfortable, but these innovations can also be a risk, particularly to democratic (民主的) processes.

In years past, people voted on paper ballots with a pen. Voters could look over their ballots to ensure that they did not make a mistake. Also when there was a dispute over the results of an election, paper ballots (选票) allowed election officials to count votes by hand. This process was long and tedious, but the results could be easily confirmed to see if there were any inconsistency between counts. Several countries still use this traditional system of voting and it provides a crucial foundation for ensuring fairness.

Today, however, voters cannot be sure whether electronic voting systems are reliably counting their votes. For example, a computer hacker could develop a program that redirected a person’s vote from one candidate to another. Although some people might think this is unlikely, problems with computer security have occurred throughout the world. The simple fact is that hackers can break into many computer systems for their own purposes. By illegally entering an online polling site they could change the outcome of an election. Jones and Simons, the co-authors of the book Broken Ballots, warn of such a possibility: “a risk of Internet voting is that the computer receiving the voted ballots could be attacked over the Internet by individual hackers, political operatives, foreign governments or terrorists”. Citizens should also question whether electronic voting enhances the voting process. As the old saying goes, “If something isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

If a government decides to use an electronic voting system, it should ensure that all voters receive receipts for their votes that could then be collected for subsequent confirmation. These receipts would clearly indicate that the vote had gone to the selected candidate. Furthermore, if any candidate suspects that an election is unfair, these receipts could be counted by hand and checked against the computer results. At the very least, as Jones and Simons argue, voting should be a simple, secure, and consistent process, regardless of the voting procedure being used.

Videos and video calls are becoming increasingly popular on social media in China, particularly on WeChat, the country’s most-used messaging app. We Chat’s 1.08 billion monthly active users last year made 410 million daily video and audio calls. That was 5.7 times more than in 2015, when WeChat first disclosed its operational data.

Uploading videos on WeChat Moments, a function that allows users to share their latest whereabouts, has become more widely used, with the number of videos posted multiplying 4.8 times in the past 4 years.

As a one-stop solution for Chinese people’s daily lives, We Chat has been able to produce a breakdown of its users’ preferences by age group. Those born in the 1980s for example are followers of news related to state and public affairs, whereas those younger than 20 spend the most on sweet treats.

In line with previous findings, China’s elderly population are becoming adept at using WeChat as a means of communication and conducting errands (办差事). As of September 2018, over 63 million users were registered as 55 years old or above. This group recorded an average length of 11 minutes for video calls, topping all age groups. We Chat Wallet has also registered exponential (指数的) growth, with payments in public transportation and high-speed traffic rising 4.7 times and 6.3 times, separately. Spending in retail stores and dining via WeChat rose by 1.5 times and 1.7 times. The number of users who use the app for making medical appointments and paying bills almost tripled.