The influence of America is increasing in Spain. Spanish people drink Coca­Cola, wear blue jeans, watch Hollywood movies, listen to American music, and eat fast food, and they do all these things daily.

I think that American movies are a good way to spread American culture because people are often influenced by what they see in the movies. Most of the entertainment programs and documentaries we watch on TV are from America, and most of the movies we go to are made in Hollywood.

In the last few years, the government has tried to protect the Spanish movies. Now, in our cinemas, at least twenty percent of the movies which are shown must be from Spain or from a country of the European Union.

American culture is very much a part of Spanish life. It’s certain that many things from America are as much a part of their lives as Spanish things. For example, Coca­Cola is as familiar to everybody as any typical Spanish product. I’ve known Coca­Cola my whole life.

However, it’s different with Western fast food. For example, I don’t think McDonald’s is as successful in Spain as it is in other countries. In my opinion, one of the reasons may be the lifestyle of the Spanish people. The Spanish people normally eat at home.

It may be that McDonald’s hamburgers will eventually replace the famous Spanish tapas because in every city in Spain you can find a McDonald’s, and they are more popular among the Spanish children than among the adults. In any case, it’s obvious that American culture is more and more a part of our everyday life.

In 2002, an Australian man went to his friend’s 21st birthday party. He got drunk, fell off some steps and cut his lip. He took a picture of his injuries and shared it with his friends online. “And sorry about the focus,” he wrote, “it was a selfie(自拍).” That was the first recorded use of the word “selfie”, according to some experts at Oxford Dictionaries.

Oxford Dictionaries declared “selfie” Word of the Year for 2013, in honor of the term having taken over the world thanks to millions of smart phone self­portraits and the resulting shares on social media. In recent years, the act of taking a picture of oneself with a mobile phone, placing the subject center­stage, has won great popularity with everyone from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth Ⅱ to US with former President Barack Obama joining in.

But the rise of selfie photography in some of the world’s most beautiful, dangerous places has also inspired a lot of risk­taking behavior, such as hanging from a tall building, standing in front of a rushing train and crossing a busy street. People who get addicted will never stop taking selfies, completely ignoring where they are. In fact, there have been several reports about people losing their lives while taking selfies. Several governments have now begun treating selfie as a serious threat to safety, warning visitors to pay attention to the dangers when taking selfies.

“Walt Disney World is also banning selfie­sticks from its theme parks because selfie­sticks have become a growing safety concern for our guests,” Disney World spokeswoman Kim Prunty said. Under the new policy, guests will be checked for the equipment during the routine bag check that happens near the parks’ entrances.

Nowadays, parents are very worried because their children spend hours and hours in front of the TV screen. As this doesn’t happen to only one specific kind of family, many experts warn us that they can be some serious effects on children watching violence on television.

Children who become addicted to TV turn on the TV as soon as they get home. Although they have lots of homework, they become absorbed in TV programs. Since they spend tons of time watching TV, they have less time to enjoy real life activities, such as playing outdoor sports with friends, or enjoying other kinds of entertainment.

There are too many violent things on TV, some experts say there are 25 acts of violence per hour on TV. In addition, there are many experiments by psychologists which show how TV violence influences children. Finally, people worry that children tend to imitate what they watch on TV and may start to behave more aggressively.

What should be done? First of all, the government should regulate TV violence. It should also encourage people to invent and develop new technology which can block violent scenes from the programmes children watch. For example, with a rating system and the V-chip, inappropriate scenes of violence and sex can be blocked out.

Second, parents should monitor what their children watch. At the same time they should interest their children in real life activities. Then when the children start to spend more time playing with friends or reading books, parents can stop their monitoring.

It is a fact that there is more violence on TV today than there was ten years ago. Moreover, violent incidents occur more frequently. It’s time to realize how harmful watching TV violence is, and it’s time to save our children from violence.

Cycling isn’t always easy. Busy streets, honking horns, and inadequate bike lanes can make it an uphill battle. But not even these difficulties can stop Europeans’ passion for cycling. According to BBC, bicycles outsold cars in most of the European Union’s states last year.

There are traditional bicycle capitals”, such as Amsterdam in the Netherlands and Copenhagen in Denmark. But in many other traditionally car-made countries, the shift to bikes is striking. Italians, for instance, bought 1.6 million bikes against 1.4 million cars in 2012.

So what has led to cycling’s growing popularity in Europe?

The economic crisis has played an important role in the issue. “The economic crisis has had an effect on all areas of people’s lives, including on transport,” Giulietta Pagliaccio, head of the Italian cycling federation FIAB, told the Australian Associated Press.

Since the European debt crisis broke out in 2009, more people lost their jobs while the cost of living, including fuel costs, continued to rise. It forced many people to give up driving to save money, the Guangzhou-based New Express commented. Take Greece, a country seriously hit by the crisis, for example. It sold 320,000 bikes last year against 58,000 cars.

More importantly, people have changed their views toward cars and bikes. Cars are losing their appeal as status symbols. Yet, cycling is now seen as “a safe, clean, healthy, inexpensive way to get around town”, the Daily Star concluded. “It not only reduces traffic jam and pollution, but also contributes to public health.”

However, with more and more people turning to cycling, questions remain about traffic and safety problems.

To ease people’s worries, dozens of cities have joined a European Union to make bicycles equal to cars as a form of urban transport. Quite a few cities now offer well-marked bike lanes, such as the cycling super-highway marked in blue in London. It runs all over the city, from the center to the suburbs.