If you are like most young people, you’ll have been online or used a phone at some point today. A bit of screen time is fine especially if you are studying, socializing
A recent study of more than 4,000
If you are worried that you are spending too many hours scrolling (滚动) through social media feeds, glued to the television or
See if you can go
2 . A new report has concluded that advertising managers are becoming increasingly interested in children. Studies show that children influence about 50 percent of things that families buy, so they’re an attractive target for advertisers.
John Taylor, the author of the report, says:“Advertisers can reach their target in many ways. They can, for example, show an ad many times during school holidays, they can make the TV advertisements a little louder than the programmes to attract attention, or they can sponsor programmes and show their advertisements just before the programme begins.”
Most advertisements aimed at children are short, imaginative and often in the form of animated cartoons(动画片).“Children love the ads and watch them in the same way as any entertainment programmer,”Taylor says.
There’re concerns about advertising aimed at young people. The concerns are shared by Sarah Durham, a writer and journalist specializing in media analysis. “The most worrying thing is that children don’t think carefully when they see television advertisements. They’re less critical than adults and don’t usually realise the advertisement has a persuasive message, to encourage them or their parents to spend as much money as possible on the product or service,”she says.
There’re also concerns over the vast sums of money that junk food producers spend on advertising to persuade children to buy their food products. Many advertisements, argues Durham, sell food that is a lot higher in fat, salt and sugar than healthier alternatives. “Many companies target children with offers of free toys, models of cartoon characters and gimmicky（耍花招的）packaging.”
Government approaches to controlling advertising to children vary. In Sweden, one of the strictest countries where advertising is concerned, TV advertising to children under the age of 12 is banned. Greece bans television advertisements for children’s toys between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Denmark and the Netherlands also have legal controls whereas France, Britain and Germany prefer self-regulation（自动调节）．
Some countries are not as certain as the Swedes that advertising to children is harmful. The French argue that children need to see many advertisements so that they can develop their ability to think as they grow up. The belief is that advertising will help children to be more aware of its persuasive power.
1. What does John Taylor mainly talk about in Paragraph 2?| A．Ways in which advertisers reach children. |
| B．The time children spend watching television. |
| C．Examples of successful advertising to children. |
| D．The serious problems of advertising to children. |
| A．TV ads limit children’s imagination. |
| B．TV ads affect children’s brain development. |
| C．Children lack the good sense to make decisions. |
| D．Children may spend lots of time watching television. |
| A．It’s tasty. | B．It’s cheap. |
| C．It’s unhealthy. | D．It’s readymade. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Relaxed. |
| C．Objective. | D．Unfavorable. |
3 . Ask 9-year-old Annie what the worst thing was that ever happened in her house last year, and she won’t tell you that it was her parents divorcing, although they did. No, what Annie remembers most are the horrible fights leading up to the announcement about the divorce which was, as it turned out, and despite her parents anxiety about telling her, “not that big of a deal.” “I already knew they were not getting along well,” Annie says, “Every night after I went to bed, l would hear my parents fighting.” It made me really unhappy. When they finally decided to get a divorce, all of that stopped.
Annie's experience is more common than you might think, and there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that “staying together for the sake of the children” is not all it's cracked up to be, and may do more harm than good. According to psychologist Lynn Martingdale, hearing their parents argue is often more stressful for children than separation and divorce, and if you think that your children don’t know that there's trouble in family, then you're kidding yourself. The home life of children whose parents have an unhappy marriage is often far from ideal, and what's worse, parents will compound the problem by taking their unhappiness out on the children.
The Center for Moving Forward conducted a study in 2014 in which they followed 25families whose parents had been in marriage counseling. After tracking these families for 5 years, they found that the children of the parents who had eventually gotten divorced were not worse off than the children of those who had remained together, and in some cases had fared better. The study took into consideration, social and the children's general sense of well-being.
1. Why was Annie really unhappy according to paragraph 1?| A．Her parents fought every night. | B．Her parents finally got divorced. |
| C．Her parents decided to abandon her. | D．Her parents got along badly with her. |
| A．Separation and divorce will hurt the children most. |
| B．Keeping an unhappy marriage hurts children more. |
| C．Children can't understand their parents' marriage well. |
| D．Children can’t feel the unhappiness from their parents. |
| A．To give an example of divorce. |
| B．To support Annie's correct answer. |
| C．To further clear the author's view point. |
| D．To highlight the importance of the study. |
| A．Divorce Is Good for Children | B．Divorce Is Not the Worst Thing |
| C．Fighting Is Often Stressful | D．Staying Together Is for Children Only |
