In the past，people kept in touch with faraway friends by writing letters．With the     22    （develop）of communication technology，nowadays，when people travel around the world，they still can see     23     their friends are doing     24     social media tools．The digital age also     25    （enable）us to find people     26    （share）our interests on the Internet，    27     can connect us with others who even live on the side of the world．But     28     depends if they are real friends online．Real friends always exchange true personal information     29     some other people tend     30    （post）only good things that make them appear happy and friendly．Despite these     31    （change）in technology，people still long for friends．

Letters as a way of communication have long given way to phone calls and WeChat messages.

But a TV show, Letters Alive, is helping bring this old way to keep in touch back into the present.

Letters Alive took its idea from a UK program with a similar name, Letters Live, which was first shown in 2013. Both shows feature famous actors and actresses, but there is no gossip , no eye-catching visual effects or any regular showbiz (演艺圈) activities. Instead, it’s just one person walking up to a microphone and reading a letter.

But these are not just any letters. They are selected from a wide time span and a diverse range of subjects. There is, for example, a passionate letter that famous painter Huang Yongyu wrote to playwright Cao Yu 30 years ago to criticize his lack of creativity. There is also a heartfelt note from Spring and Autumn Period written by two ordinary young soldiers to their elder brother to report their lives in the war zone.

Every letter is like a small piece of history. By hearing them being read, it’s as if we are being sent back in time to experience a moment that we would otherwise never have had the chance to.

“Letters Live makes us pause and imagine the lives behind the letters,” UK actor Benedict Cumberbatch, one of the readers on the UK show, told The Guardian. “It allows people from all ages and all walks of life to experience a moment of time in someone else’s life for a brief moment.”

Compared to published texts, letters also come with a personal touch.

One example from Letters Live was a note of thanks from the mother of a dying child to JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books. It read: “Mrs Rowling, Cancer threatened to take everything from my daughter, and your books turned out to be the castle we so desperately needed to hide in.”

According to Guan Zhengwen, the director of Letters Alive, it is this kind of humanity behind every letter that strikes a chord (引发共鸣) with the audience. It is also what made the show a big hit in China ever since its first episode aired on Dec 5.

“It’s a thing of the past that entertainment shows establish themselves only with pretty faces,” Guan told Sohu News. “Showbiz is starting to switch to a focus on wisdom and intelligence.

During the first decade of the 21st century, a popular and new word has come into our vocabulary. That word is Facebook. This is the most popular social networking website on the Internet. There are about 350 million active users on this website. The main idea of Facebook is that you can keep in touch with all your friends around the world who has Facebook. In the 350 million users on Facebook, 67% of them are between the ages of 13-25. More than 35 million users update their status every day. 2.5 billion Photos are added each month.

The highest age groups who use Facebook are teenagers. Most of them keep the website running whenever they are using the computer and general teens nowadays are always on the computer, if they aren’t in school or when they aren’t asleep. I feel that teens should focus on their schoolwork or be socializing with their friends in person or exercising. Facebook is just changing the new generation of youngsters completely because the teenage life is one of the most important stages of life and wasting it on Facebook is not encouraging this in any way. It is also a complete distraction (分心) to their mind, for they would turn to Facebook just to check if there was anything updated among their friends.

Remember back in the good old days, when teens would do their homework handwritten, play sports and hang out with friends. Today, most teens would only speak to their friends on Facebook, while we can see them battling obesity as they stare at their friend’s message on their wall. In summary, teens don’t have a life because they are on Facebook 24/7, except for those who don t use Facebook or occasionally do.

Facebook is also where people can see the conflicts among their friends, virtual arguments, relationship status and updates, who is in whose ‘top friends, and so on. You can join groups, post pictures and videos, play games, and invite friends to parties. Mainly, all this would just disturb people into living life to its fullest.