1 . When you get in a car, you expect it will have functioning brakes. When you pick up medicine at the drugstore, you expect it won’t be polluted. But it wasn’t always like this. The safety of these products was terrible when they first came to market. It took much research and regulation to figure out how users can enjoy the benefits of these products without getting harmed.
Social media risks are everywhere. The dangers that algorithms designed to maximize attention represent to teens have become impossible to ignore. Other product design elements, often called “dark patterns,” designed to keep people using for longer, also appear to tip young users into social media overuse.
Despite these efforts, two things are clear. First, online safety problems are leading to real, offline suffering. Second, social media companies can’t, or won’t, solve these safety problems on their own.
A.And those problems aren’t going away. |
B.The current issues aren’t really about offline suffering. |
C.Platforms already have systems to remove violent or harmful content. |
D.Similarly, social media needs product safety standards to keep users safe. |
E.It’s time we should require social media to take safety seriously, for everyone’s sake. |
F.Internet platforms, however, have shifted blame on the consumers whenever criticized. |
G.Some authorities are taking steps to hold social media platforms accountable for the content. |
2 . Recent research demonstrates the harmful mental health effects caused by social media use, including increased rates of depression, anxiety, suicidal tendency and self-harm. Adolescents (青少年) who spend more than three hours per day on social media face twice the risk of poor mental health outcomes.
Addictive feeds — designed to make use of personal data to intensify (增强) users’ content that will keep them on the platform for as long as possible — have dramatically heightened the risk to young users’ well-being and made our children addicted to these social media outlets.
In the first seven years after addictive feeds were introduced, suicide rates for 10- to 14-year-old girls doubled and hospitalizations for suicidal tendency and attempts increased nearly twice for all adolescents.
Instead of responding to the problem, social media empires have made great efforts to keep and capture user engagement, and the consequences have been catastrophic.
Beyond the direct harm of social media addiction, the collection of children’s data by these giant companies puts our kids at huge risk, leaving them vulnerable (易受伤的) to having their location and other personal data tracked, shared and sold online. As a consequence, that data is at greater risk of falling into the wrong hands-including human traffickers, identity thieves and others who might prey (欺凌) on young people.
We will not stand by and watch an arms race among social media mega-corporations (大型企业) over who can best profit from our children’s pain and addiction. That is why we should use and are using every tool at our disposal to fight back against these damaging practices: from the courthouse to the statehouse.
1. What can we learn about addictive feeds?A.They are food that can easily satisfy people. |
B.They are internet content that can get people addicted. |
C.They are kept on the platform just for a short period of time. |
D.They are personal data stored on the internet for convenience. |
A.destructive | B.striking | C.unique | D.effective |
A.To introduce a research finding. |
B.To explain the harms caused by addictive feeds. |
C.To blame irresponsible social media mega-corporations. |
D.To call on people to protect children against social media harms. |
A.Mental Health Is Safe for Children |
B.Teens Should Be kept Away from Internet |
C.Addictive Feeds Heighten Great Risks to Teens |
D.Social Media Empires Are to Blame for Children’s Safety |