'Have you written a letter to the Froplinsons?' asked Egbert.
'No,' said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice; 'I've written eleven letters today expressing surprise and gratitude for sundry unmerited gifts, but I haven't written to the Froplinsons yet.'
'Someone will have to do it,' said Egbert.
'I don't dispute the necessity, but I don't think that someone should be me,' said Janetta. 'I wouldn't mind writing a letter of angry recrimination or heartless satire to some suitable recipient. In fact, I should rather enjoy it, but I've come to the end of my capacity for expressing servile amiability. Eleven letters today and nine yesterday, all couched in the same strain of ecstatic thankfulness: really, you can't expect me to sit down to another. There is such a thing as writing oneself out.'
'I've written nearly as many,' said Egbert, 'and I've had my usual business correspondence to get through, too. Besides, I don't know what it was that the Froplinsons sent us.' 'A William the Conqueror calendar,' said Janetta, 'with a quotation of one of his great thoughts for every day in the year.'
'Impossible,' said Egbert; 'he didn't have three hundred and sixty-five thoughts in the whole of his life, or, if he did, he kept them to himself.'
'Well, it was William Wordsworth, then,' said Janetta; 'I know William came into it somewhere.'
'That sounds more probable,' said Egbert; 'well, let's collaborate on this letter and get it done. I'll dictate, and you can scribble it down. 'Dear Mrs. Froplinson, thank you and your husband so much for the very pretty calendar you sent us. It was very good of you to think of us.' '
'You can't possibly say that,' said Janetta, laying down her pen. 'We sent them something on the twenty-second,' said Janetta, 'so they simply had to think of us. There was no getting away from it.'
'What did we send them?' asked Egbert gloomily.
'Bridge-markers,' said Janetta, 'in a cardboard case, with some inanity about 'digging for fortune with a royal spade' emblazoned on the cover. The moment I saw it in the shop I said to myself 'Froplinsons' and to the attendant 'How much?' When he said 'Ninepence,' I gave him their address, jabbed our card in, paid tenpence or elevenpence to cover the postage, and thanked heaven. With less sincerity and infinitely more trouble they eventually thanked me.'
'The Froplinsons don't play bridge,' said Egbert.
'One is not supposed to notice social deformities of that sort,' said Janetta; 'it wouldn't be polite. Besides, what trouble did they take to find out whether we read Wordsworth with gladness? For all they knew or cared we might be frantically embedded in the belief that all poetry begins and ends with John Masefield, and it might infuriate or depress us to have a daily sample of Wordsworthian products flung at us.'
'Well, let's get on with the letter,' said Egbert. 'How clever of you to guess that Wordsworth is our favourite poet.'
Again Janetta laid down her pen.
'Do you realise what that means?' she asked; 'a Wordsworth booklet next Christmas, and another calendar the Christmas after, with the same problem of having to write suitable letters of thankfulness. No, the best thing to do is to drop all further allusion to the calendar and switch off on to some other topic.'
'But what other topic?'
'Oh, something like this: 'What do you think of the New Year Honours List? A friend of ours made such a clever remark when he read it.' Then you can stick in any remark that comes into your head; it needn't be clever. The Froplinsons won't know whether it is or isn't.'
'We don't even know on which side they are in politics,' objected Egbert; 'and anyhow you can't suddenly dismiss the subject of the calendar. Surely there must be some intelligent remark that can be made about it.'
'Well, we can't think of one,' said Janetta wearily; 'the fact is, we've both written ourselves out.'
There was a long silence, the forlorn silence of those who are bereft of hope and have almost ceased to care. Then Egbert started from his seat with an air of resolution. The light of battle was in his eyes.
'Let me come to the writing-table,' he exclaimed; 'I'm going to write to the editor of every enlightened and influential newspaper in the Kingdom, I'm going to suggest that there should be a sort of epistolary Truce of God during the festivities of Christmas and New Year. From the twenty-fourth of December to the third or fourth of January it shall be considered an offence against good sense and good feeling to write or expect any letter or communication that does not deal with the necessary events of the moment. Answers to invitations, arrangements about trains, renewal of club subscriptions, and, of course, all the ordinary everyday affairs of business, sickness, engaging new cooks, and so forth, these will be dealt with in the usual manner as something inevitable. But all the devastating accretions of correspondence, incident to the festive season, these should be swept away to give the season a chance of being really festive.'
'But you would have to make some acknowledgment of presents received,' objected Janetta; 'otherwise people would never know whether they had arrived safely.'
'Of course, I have thought of that,' said Egbert; 'every present that was sent off would be accompanied by a ticket bearing the date of dispatch and the signature of the sender, and some conventional hieroglyphic to show that it was intended to be a Christmas or New Year gift; there would be a counterfoil with space for the recipient's name and the date of arrival, and all you would have to do would be to sign and date the counterfoil, add a conventional hieroglyphic indicating heartfelt thanks and gratified surprise, put the thing into an envelope and post it.'
'It sounds delightfully simple,' said Janetta wistfully, 'but people would consider it too perfunctory.'
'It is not a bit more perfunctory than the present system,' said Egbert; 'I have only the same conventional language of gratitude at my disposal with which to thank dear old Colonel Chuttle for his perfectly delicious Stilton, which we shall devour to the last morsel, and the Froplinsons for their calendar, which we shall never look at. So you see the present system of acknowledgment is just as perfunctory and conventional as the counterfoil business would be, only ten times more tiresome and brain-racking.'
'Your plan would certainly bring the idea of a Happy Christmas a step nearer realisation,' said Janetta. 'Meanwhile, what am I to say to the Froplinsons?'
(Adapted from 'Down Pens' by H. H. Munro)

iGeneration: teenagers affected by phones
One day last summer, around noon, I called Athena, a 13-year-old who lives in Houston, Texas. She answered her phone — she has had an iPhone since she was 11 — sounding as if she'd just woken up. We chatted about her favorite songs and TV shows, and I asked her what she likes to do with her friends. "We go to the mall," she said. "Do your parents drop you off?" I asked, recalling my own middleschool days, in the 1980s, when I'd enjoy a few parent-free hours shopping with my friends. "No — I go with my family," she replied. "We'll go with my mom and brothers and walk a little behind them. I just have to tell my mom where we are going. I have to check in every hour or every 30 minutes."

Those mall trips are infrequent — about once a month. More often, Athena and her friends spend time together on their phones, unchaperoned. Unlike the teens of my generation, who might have spent an evening tying up the family landline with gossip, they talk on Snapchat, a smartphone app that allows users to send pictures and videos that quickly disappear. They make sure to keep up their Snapstreaks, which show how many days in a row they have Snapchatted with each other. She told me she had spent most of the summer hanging out alone in her room with her phone. That is just the way her generation is, she said. "We didn't know any life other than with iPads or iPhones. I think we like our phones more than we like actual people."

Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, and many are both. More comfortable in their bedrooms than in a car or at a party, today's teens are physically safer than teens have ever been. They are markedly less likely to get into a car accident and, having less of a taste for alcohol than their predecessors, are less susceptible to drinking's attendant ills.

Psychologically, however, they are more vulnerable than Millennials were: rates of teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed since 2011. It is not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.

However, in my conversations with teens, I saw hopeful signs that kids themselves are beginning to link some of their troubles to their ever-present phone. Athena told me that when she does spend time with her friends in person, they are often looking at their device instead of at her. "I'm trying to talk to them about something, and they don't actually look at my face," she said. "They're looking at their phone, or they're looking at their Apple Watch." "What does that feel like, when you're trying to talk to somebody face-to-face and they're not looking at you?" I asked. "It kind of hurts," she said. "It hurts. I know my parents' generation didn't do that. I could be talking about something super important to me, and they wouldn't even be listening."

Once, she told me, she was hanging out with a friend who was texting her boyfriend. "I was trying to talk to her about my family, and what was going on, and she was like, 'Uh-huh, yeah, whatever.' So I took her phone out of her hands and I threw it at the wall."

Though it is aggressive behavior that I don't support, on the other hand — it is a step towards a life with limited phone use. So, if I were going to give advice for a happy adolescence, it would be straightforward: put down the phone, turn off the laptop, and do something — anything — that does not involve a screen.

Jonte faced playtime with mixed feelings. When the bell rang, the others would rush into the open air, laughing and chattering. He felt left out. Yet these were also times he enjoyed. He could daydream about how things might have been.
Sometimes, though, he would watch the play not directly, that would have been impossible but on the big screen in one of the classrooms. Cheering on his friends made him feel part of the action. Even through the screens, however, watching for long often made his eyes hurt. Sunlight reflected strongly off the silvery turf, and even more from the trees around the ground. Players in motion trailed flashes of light which left black spots in his vision.

It was during a tense game that the summons came through. The shelter Principal, no less, wanted him at once in his office. Jonte uttered a mild swearword, though realising that he had already been watching too long — his head was aching. He made his way to the admin sector, signalled his arrival and went in. The Principal was behind his desk directly opposite the door. He was a small man, with metallic black hair cut short, silver-grey hands in constant fidgety motion and an expression of perpetual irritation. He waved in the direction of a chair placed in front of the desk.

But to Jonte's surprise, there were several other people in the office. It was difficult at first to see them all clearly: not only had the effects of watching the match still to wear off, but the lighting was poor. Perhaps the Principal had only remembered at the last minute to close the heavy shutters and switch on a lamp.
As his vision returned, Jonte's surprise grew. The six men and two women, who sat in a half circle to one side, judging by their job tags, were senior... very senior. Four were from the administration. The two women and the other two men seemed to be scientists from different research bodies.

Jonte was used to the fact that other people were inscrutable. He would have been able to tell from gazing in a mirror into his own eyes, with their blue irises surrounding dark pupils, how he was feeling, even if he hadn't known yet. But other people's eyes were silver discs, giving away nothing. He could sometimes see from the rest of their faces whether they were happy or sad, smiling or frowning; but their skin reflected the light, so that he could never be quite sure. From the way they were sitting, he thought, the visitors seemed anxious.

'Jonte', the Principal said, 'these people have a favour to ask, and I hope you can help them. Please sit down.' Jonte's surprise grew. What possible favour could these people want from someone like him? 'I'll help if I can', he said.
'You know,' the Principal went on, 'that you have had to grow up here because going outside would be dangerous. Your body wouldn't be able to withstand the radiation, even at night-time. Ordinary people are born with protection; but in your case...'

'So you see', one of the women interjected quickly, 'you are really a very interesting young man. We want you to let us get to know you better.'
'The people here,' the Principal resumed, 'are from the government's science and research council. They would like to take you to one of their centres in the south, where the facilities are supposed to be better than we can provide. '
'But I'm quite happy here,' Jonte felt he should say. 'My friends...'
'... and in any case,' the Principal insisted a trifle sourly, 'you wouldn't be able to stay much longer. The shelter is being closed down.'
Jonte took this in. 'So when do I have to go?' he asked.
'If you can pack your things together quickly,' one of the men replied, 'we should like to move you this evening ... say in an hour. Is that all right?'
An hour! The suddenness of it all puzzled Jonte. His condition had been known from the moment he had been born when his parents so he had been told had handed him over for special care. But it also excited him. Apart from a short journey when he had been much younger to a medical centre, he could not remember ever having left the shelter. He didn't really have much to pack anyway.
(Adapted from 'Fear No More' by George Anthony)