1 . The Bad of Online Communication

Today, online services and products are where most development in communication is happening.     1    However, giving online also has a dark side. Some people spend so much time on the Internet that they become totally dependent on it. Psychologists and social scientists worry that if people spend more time with computers than with other people,     2     What happens if Internet addicts forget the rules for normal social behaviour simply from lack of practice? Studies have not shown any definite results yet, but if young people are becoming more nervous when it comes to face-to-face meetings, there are good reasons to be concerned.

Apart from dependency, there are other objections and worries about the Internet.     3     Being open and honest with complete strangers, then arranging to meet them is very dangerous behaviour. It is especially dangerous for young children. And it is increasingly important that parents take note of their children's activities on the Internet.

    4    . As you reveal (透漏) your heart and soul, and name and number，to some trusted chat room friend, there could easily be a hacker taking your information. Some hackers could even be using your identity and password.       5     . Many people say that going online, whether for chatting or surfing the web , has improved their lives. Either way, for better or for worse, website chat rooms are here to stay in one form or another, putting in touch friends, family, and strangers alike.

2 . Just Scream! a hotline which was created by elementary school teacher whose name is Chris Gollmar aimed to reduce tension for those who need an outlet. All you had to do was call the hotline and scream as loud as you wanted.

Chris Gollmar spends his free time working on art projects that invite people to call a phone number and leave a voicemail for other people to hear. He thought that it would be funny and unique to create a phone line just for screaming，and thus he came up with the creative project in September, 2020.

After people dialed in, their calls would be recorded and then put on the website that Chris Gollmar created. “Why should 1 call you?” the website asked “To scream! You might be unhappy, terrified or frustrated. All of these are perfectly good reasons to call the hotline and scream.”

Personal phone numbers were not stored, and all calls went to an answering machine — interacting with a real person wasn’t required.

Chris Gollmar got a large number of recordings after he launched the hotline. “Never in my life would I have expected so many people to actually pick up the phone, dial a number and record themselves for the world to hear,” he said. ‘‘But we’re all screaming on the inside right now. The hotline stopped accepting calls in January, 2021. After that, Chris Gollmar said he would pick a new project to work on."

Should Children Have Smart Phones?

Today, it is common for children to use smart phones every day. Smart phones are very useful for communicating and doing tasks. However, smart phones can also cause unwanted     1     （consequence）,especially when used by young children.

Smart phones are convenient not only for children,     2     for the rest of family members as well. With them. parents always know the real-time location of their children. Smart phones can also promote better interactions with friends, regardless     3     their locations. They're useful when children are doing their homework and need     4     （assist）. Children can get some information that can help them to understand learning materials more quickly and     5     （well）.

But parents should provide correct guidance on how to use smart phones     6     （proper）. Without parental guidance, children can spend more than five hours each day     7     （use）smart phones. Teenagers tend     8     （waste）nearly eight hours a day on their phones. Addiction to smart phones may cause lower academic grades. Frequent use of smart phones may affect the quality and quantity of sleep,     9     can lead to weakened immunity（免疫力）, reduced focus and depression（抑郁症）.

Therefore, without proper guidance, parents shouldn't allow children to use smart phones for a long period of time. Only when children want to communicate with friends and do research for learning projects, can they     10     （give）smart phones.

7 . Algorithms (计算程序) are able to do a huge number of tasks, and the number of tasks that they are able to do is expanding practically every day. According to a new study, despite increasing concern over the effect of algorithms in daily life, more and more people nowadays are willing to trust a computer program, especially if a task becomes too challenging. From choosing the next song on your playlist to choosing the right size of pants, people are relying more on the advice of algorithms to help make everyday decisions.

During the study, researchers asked volunteers to count the number of people of a crowd in a photograph and supplied suggestions that were offered by a group of other people and suggestions offered by an algorithm. As the number of people in the photograph expanded, counting became more difficult and people were more likely to follow the suggestions offered by an algorithm rather than count themselves or follow the “wisdom of the crowd”.

One of the common problems with AI is when it is used for awarding credit. While that is a subjective decision, there are lots of numbers there, like income and credit scores. Therefore, people feel like this is a good job for an algorithm. But we know that dependence leads to unfair and incomplete practices in many cases because of social factors that aren’t considered.

Facial recognition and hiring algorithms have come under inspection in recent years because their use has shown cultural prejudice in the way they were built, which can cause inaccuracies when matching faces to identities or screening for qualified job candidates. The prejudice may not be present in a simple task like counting, but their presence in other trusted algorithms is a reason why it is important to understand how people rely on algorithms when making decisions.

“The eventual goal is to look at groups of humans and computers making decisions and find how we can get them to trust each other and how that changes their behaviors,” one of the researchers said. “Because there is very little research in that setting, we’re starting with the fundamentals.”

What would you do if the Internet suddenly disappeared? A recent survey has shown that     1     number of people in the United Kingdom who do not want to use the Internet has risen. These people, who     2     (know) as “net refuseniks”,make up 44% of UK households, or 11.2 million people in number.

The research also showed that more than 70 percent of these people said that they were not     3     (interest) in getting connected to the Internet. This number has risen     4     just over 50% in 2005 to the present 70% , with most lacking in many computer     5     (skill) as a reason for not using the Internet, though some also said it was because of the cost.

More and more people are getting broadband(宽带) and high speed net     6     (be) almost everywhere in the UK, but there are still a lot of people who refuse     7     (take) the first step.

With the cost of getting online going down and internet speeds increasing, many net refuseniks begin to reconsider the     8     (connect) of the Internet. This would encourage them to get connected before they are left too far behind. If the gap(落差) between those     9     use the Internet and those don’t continues to widen, those without broadband will get left behind and miss many chances,     10     (especial) in their work.

9 . Since “SQUID GAME” appeared in mid-September, the show has taken the world by storm, producing millions of videos on TikTok. In Paris fights broke out as fans tried to crowd into a shop where visitors could take photos with staff dressed like the characters from the show.

“Squid Game”, which takes its name from a common Korean schoolyard game, follows a group of heavily-indebted losers who are dressed in green sportswear and fight for a nearly $40 million prize.

The global strong interest for the show confused people in South Korea. “Nobody around me understands why it was so popular, and neither do I,” says In-young, a 26-year-old from Seoul who stopped watching after a couple of episodes (集) because it upset her to see her childhood games described as a cruel struggle for survival, though she admitted the show in some way made sense for ordinary South Koreans struggling with unaffordable housing and low-paid jobs.

One Korean critic (评论家) guesses that the mix of violent entertainment with a very popular comments explains the show’s attraction to Western audiences, who are used to such themes from American productions such as “The Hunger Games”.

No doubt the attractive shape of the design, the grand clothing and scenes as well as the translation of different languages also help. The popularity of “Squid Game” is a reflection of South Korea’s outsize cultural power on the global stage. It may also have benefited from “Parasite”, a film about social injustice, which won the Oscar for best picture in 2020. But most of all, it shows that, like love and money, complaints about unfairness have no language.

10 . Since terrorist attack in 2019 that killed 50 people in New Zealand was livestreamed on Facebook, many of the negative effects of social media have begun to be known. So far, it’s not looking good.

Not that social media is bad in nature. It does not necessarily cause mental health problems. What it is doing, however — especially in young people, a new study argues — is increasing the number of cases of young people’s depression (抑郁) and suicide (自杀).

The new study, led by psychologist Jean Twenge at San Diego State University, has researched the effects of technology and social media on the teenager brain. For this study, Twenge and her partners researched data (数据) from 2005 to 2017. They wanted to know what age groups suffered more from depression. Chance of mood disorders (紊乱), they write, “generally becomes less with age.” In this date range, depressive cases increased by 63 percent among young people aged 12 to 17, and 52 percent among young adults aged 18 to 25.

There are two tendencies that appear to be causing this problem.

According to the study, the increased use of electronic communication and digital media during this time period may have changed ways of socializing enough to affect mood disorders and suicide-related results. For example, people who spend more time on social media and less time with others face-to-face report poorer health and are more likely to be depressed.

Tied into increased screen time, which could lead to being affected by cyber-bullying, are sleep issues. Sleep duration is decreasing among all age groups, but especially young adults during a time in life when they need it the most. Lack of sleep has been linked to mood disorders, suicidal thoughts, and suicide attempts.

Using the technology for good is one step forward. But another would be to put the phone down more often. If you’ve only grown up in a world viewed through a screen, learning that other world — namely, the real one -— exists might seem impossible. Therefore, some distance is feeling more necessary day by day.