Is social media messing with children’s morals?
Parents are often concerned about the effects of social media on their children’s character. We have all heard complaints that young people are spending too much time online and not enough time in the “real world” —with studies showing that nearly three-quarters of 12 to 15-year-olds in the UK have a social media profile and spend an average of 19 hours a week online.
More worrying, perhaps, than the amount of time spent online, are the findings that suggest social media use can actually influence users’ personality and character. Recent research, for example, shown that there is a link between social media use and narcissism (自恋), and that the use of social networking websites may have an nagative effect on social decision making and reduce levels of empathy (同情心).
With this in mind, one of the latest research projects at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, looks at the impact social media has on young people’s character and moral development, and aims to understand the benefits social media can have on development.
The first stage of the research involved a “parent poll (survey)” of 1,738 parents of 11 to 17-year-olds from across the UK asked a series of questions on their feelings around social media, and the moral (or immoral) messages that appear online. Our findings so far indicate that parents’ attitudes towards social media are largely negative–over a half of parents we questioned agree that social media “hinders or weakens” a young person’s character or moral development. While only 15% of respondents agreed that social media could “enhance or support” it.
However, it isn’t all doom and gloom, because our research also shows that social media can be a source for good. Nearly three quarters of the parents who use social media on a regular basis reported seeing content with a positive moral message at least once a day-including humour, appreciation of beauty, creativity, kindness, love and courage. And it could well be, that viewing this type of positive online content could have a positive influence on young people’s attitudes and behaviours.
This is because on social media sites, users often come across new perspectives and situations-such as different religions, cultures and social groups. And exposure to these situations online could actually help young people be more understanding and tolerant—and in turn develop their empathy skills. This is because it allows them to view things from other people’s perspectives, in a way they might not be able to in “real life”.
Of course, this translation from exposure to empathy may not always follow-which can be seen in the high rates of cyber bullying. According to a 2015 report, 62% of 13 to 20-year-olds who had been bullied reported some degree of cyber bullying—which shows that empathy doesn’t always play a part in online environments.
But while it may be tempting for some parents to just ban social media use altogether, it is unlikely to be a successful strategy in the long term-social media is not going away. Instead, we need to better understand the relationship between social media use and a young person’s character and moral values. And through our research, we hope to be able to offer constructive evidence-based advice on exactly this.
Because it is clear that the online environment is a moral terrain which requires successful navigation. By understanding how some immoral events can be avoided, we can help to create a safer and more even path for young people to negotiate.
1. According to the research, what are the parents’ attitudes towards social media?2. Why could viewing positive online content have a positive influence on young people’s attitudes and behaviours?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
For parents, it is a good strategy to ban social media because it may have a negative influence on young people’s moral development.4. Please briefly present your opinion on how to be a moral person on social media. (In about 40words)
2 . In general, the society is becoming one of giant enterprises directed by a bureaucratic (官僚主义的) management in which man becomes a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery. The oiling is done with higher wages, well-equipped factories and piped music, and by psychologists and “human-relations” experts; yet all this oiling does not change the fact that man has become powerless, that he does not wholeheartedly participate in his work and he is bored with it. In fact, the blue-collar and the white-collar workers have become economic puppets who dance to the tune of automated machines and bureaucratic management.
The worker and employee are anxious, seemingly because they might find themselves out of a job or they would say that they are unable to acquire any real satisfaction or interest in life. In fact, they feel desperate as they live and die without ever having confronted the fundamental realities of human existence as emotionally and intellectually independent and productive human beings.
Those higher up on the social ladder are no less anxious. Their lives are no less empty than those of their subordinates. They are even more insecure in some respects. They are in a highly competitive race. To be promoted or to fall behind is not a matter of salary but even more a matter of self-respect. When they apply for their first job, they are tested for intelligence as well as for the right mixture of submissiveness and independence. From the moment on they are tested again and again by the psychologists, for whom testing is a big business, and by their superiors, who judge their behavior, sociability, capacity to get along, etc. This constant need to prove that one is as good as or better than one’s fellow-competitor creates constant anxiety and stress, the very causes of unhappiness and illness.
Am I suggesting a return to the pre-industrial mode of production or to nineteenth-century “free enterprise” capitalism? Certainly not. Problems are never solved by returning to a stage which one has already outgrown. I suggest transforming the social system from a bureaucratically managed industrialism in which maximal production and consumption are ends in themselves into a humanist industrialism in which man and full development of his potentialities — those of all love and of reason — are the aims of social arrangements. Production and consumption should serve as means to this end, and should be prevented from ruling man.
1. By “a small, well-oiled cog in the machinery”, the author expresses the idea that man is _________.| A．an essential part of society with irreplaceable functions |
| B．expected to work in reasonable harmony with the rest of society |
| C．an unimportant component of society, though functioning smoothly |
| D．responsible for the smooth running of society and business operations |
| A．they are filled with an overwhelming fear of being unemployed |
| B．they don’t have any genuine satisfaction or interest |
| C．they have to face the fundamental realities of human existence |
| D．they lack a sense of independence and productivity |
| A．caution | B．obedience | C．commitment | D．optimism |
| A．To introduce the production mode of our ancestors. |
| B．To show the problematic situation in society. |
| C．To argue for full development of human potentials. |
| D．To help people escape production and consumption. |
3 . In June 2022, Huffington Post and Mail Online reported that three-year-old Victoria Wilcher, who had suffered facial scarring (结疤), had been kicked out of a KFC because she was frightening customers. Later, KFC announced that no evidence had been found to support the story. This phenomenon is largely a product of the increasing pressure in newsrooms that care more about traffic figures.
Brooke Binkowski, an editor, says that, during her career, she has seen a shift towards less editorial oversight in newsrooms. “Clickbait is king, so newsrooms will uncritically print something unreal. Not all newsrooms are like this, but a lot of them are.”
Asked what the driving factor was, a journalist said, “There is undoubtedly pressure to churn out (粗制滥造) stories in order to get clicks, because they equal money. At my former employer in particular, the pressure was on due to the limited resources. That made the environment quite horrible to work in.”
In a February 2023 report for Digital Journalism, Craig Silverman wrote, “Today the bar for what is worth giving attention to seems to be much lower. Within minutes or hours, a badly sourced report can be changed into a story that is repeated by dozens of news websites, resulting in tens of thousands of shares. Once a certain critical mass is reached, repetition has a powerful effect on belief. Thus, the rumor simply becomes true for readers.”
And, in spite of the direction that some newsrooms seem to be heading in, a critical eye is becoming more, not less important, according to the New York Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan. “Reporters and editors have to be more careful than ever before. It’s extremely important to question and to use every verification (验证) method available before publication.” Yet those working in newsrooms talk of doubtful stories being tolerated because, in the words of some senior editors, “a click is a click, regardless of the advantage of a story”. And, “if the story does turn out to be false, it’s simply a chance for another bite at the cherry.”
Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling victim to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change.
1. According to Brooke Binkowski, newsrooms produce false news because .| A．clicks matter a lot | B．resources are limited |
| C．money is needed for news | D．journalists lack experience |
| A．Lies can’t sell without an atom of truth. |
| B．Rumors are like a flame blown by the wind. |
| C．You can hear rumors, but you can’t know them. |
| D．A lie, repeated frequently enough, will end up as truth. |
| A．Pessimistic. | B．Supportive. | C．Subjective. | D．Sympathetic. |
| A．Consequences of false stories. | B．Causes of online false news. |
| C．Inability of journalists. | D．A craze to get clicks. |
4 . Casting blame is natural: it is tempting to fault someone else for a mistake rather than taking responsibility yourself. But blame is also harmful. It makes it less likely that people will own up to mistakes, and thus less likely that organizations can learn from them. Research published in 2015 suggests that firms whose managers pointed to external factors to explain their failings underperformed companies that blamed themselves.
Blame culture can spread like a virus. Just as children fear mom and dad’s punishment if they admit to wrongdoing, in a blaming environment, employees are afraid of criticism and punishment if they acknowledge making a mistake at work. Blame culture asks, “who dropped the ball?” instead of “where did our systems and processes fail?” The focus is on the individuals, not the processes. It’s much easier to point fingers at a person or department instead of doing the harder, but the more beneficial, exercise of fixing the root cause, in which case the problem does not happen again.
The No Blame Culture was introduced to make sure errors and deficiencies (缺陷) were highlighted by employees as early as possible. It originated in organizations where tiny errors can have catastrophic (灾难性的) consequences. These are known as high reliability organizations (HROs) and include hospitals, submarines and airlines. Because errors can be so disastrous in these organizations, it’s dangerous to operate in an environment where employees don’t feel able to report errors that have been made or raise concerns about that deficiencies may turn into future errors. The No Blame Culture maximizes accountability because all contributions to the event occurring are identified and reviewed for possible change and improvement.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which supervises air traffic across the United States, makes it clear that its role is not to assign blame or liability but to find out what went wrong and to issue recommendations to avoid a repeat. The proud record of the airline industry in reducing accidents partly reflects no-blame processes for investigating crashes and close calls. The motive to learn from errors also exist when the risks are lower. That is why software engineers and developers routinely investigate what went wrong if a website crashes or a server goes down.
There is an obvious worry about embracing blamelessness. What if the website keeps crashing and the same person is at fault? Sometimes, after all, blame is deserved. The idea of the “just culture”, a framework developed in the 1990s by James Reason, a psychologist, addresses the concern that the incompetent and the malevolent (恶意的) will be let off the hook. The line that Britain’s aviation regulator draws between honest errors and the other sort is a good starting-point. It promises a culture in which people “are not punished for actions or decisions taken by them that match with their experience and training”. That narrows room for blame but does not remove it entirely.
1. According to the research published in 2015, companies that ______ had better performance.| A．blamed external factors | B．admitted their mistakes |
| C．conducted investigations | D．punished the under performers |
| A．It encourages the early disclosure of errors. |
| B．It only exists in high reliability organizations. |
| C．It enables people to shift the blame onto others. |
| D．It prevents organizations from making any error. |
| A．Innocent people might take the blame by admitting their failure. |
| B．Being blamed for mistakes can destroy trust in employees. |
| C．The line between honest errors and the other sort is not clear. |
| D．People won’t learn their lessons if they aren’t blamed for failures. |
| A．Why We Fail to Learn from Our Own Mistakes |
| B．How to Avoid Disastrous Errors in Organizations |
| C．Why We Should Stop the Blame Game at Work |
| D．How to Deal with Workplace Blame Culture |
You are watching your favorite TV show when a commercial break starts. First you see an ad for candy. Then there is one for fast food. Your stomach growls. Suddenly, all you can think about is how much you need a snack.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Researchers from McMaster University in Canada studied the effects of junk food ad. The researchers examined the effects of advertising junk food on more than 6000kids through TV commercials and other types of media. They found that kids made unhealthy food and drink choicesas quickly as 30 minutes after seeing the ads.
“There is too much unhealthy food advertising out there,” Says Behnam Sadeghirad. He’s one of the researchers who led the study. “This is dangerous for younger children.”
Food and drink ads are everywhere from TV to the Internet. Companies want to make sure you know about their products. They spend nearly 1.8 billion a year on food ads aimed at kids according to a report.
The Nielsen Company tracked the number of food ads that kids saw in 2015. It found that kids watched nearly 12 food ads on TV each day. Most of these ads weren’t for health y foods. In fact, on average. kids saw only one ad per week for fruits and vegetables. Instead, most of the ads were for fast food, candy and sugary drinks.
Jennifer Harris, a professor at the University of Connecticut, says this is a big part of the problem. “Unhealthy foods are not things we should be encouraging kids to eat more often”. Harris says. “But unfortunately those are the products being advertised to them the most”.
Health experts say it’s OK to treat yourself to a cookie once in a while. But what can you do to keep from having an unhealthy snack every time you see an ad for junk food? Harris says it’s important to learn to spot the techniques companies use in their ads, tell their kids what is going on and help kids think about whether these products are good for them.
1. What did researchers from MaMaster University find?2. What do the findings of the Nielsen Company suggest?
3. Please decide which part is false in the following statement, then underline it and explain why.
To avoid negative impacts of advertisements for unhealthy food, parents should keep their kids from watching these kinds of advertisements.
4. Please briefly describe what you can do to reduce the negative impact of advertising on your life.
The number of adults worldwide
While improvements in education are forecast
7 . Hardly a day goes by without some new claim promising to bring us closer to the metaverse (元宇宙) in the not-too-distant future. On hearing this, some will feel pure excitement, but others will feel unsure or downright opposed. Our habit in recent history has been looking down upon those with doubts on technological progress. It may be time to re-examine that.
There has been a backlash to technology since historical memories began. Every new form of communication has attracted criticism for increasing the pace of life. For example, people once feared that cars travelling at 20 to 30 miles per hour might rob their passengers of oxygen.
When we look back, contemporary resistance to technological advancement can look completely foolish, but often it isn’t. The Luddites, for example, the destroyer of mill (作坊) machinery in the early industrial revolution, are generally referred to as a historical joke. But if we look at their real complaints, it wasn’t some naive anti-progress movement; it was about economics. Cotton mills replaced skilled, home-based, independent work with lower-skilled work in a factory, accompanied by much less autonomy and much less pay.
The mill might have been more efficient and thus more profitable, but it would take decades of campaigning to distribute those gains even approximately fairly — with the birth of the trade union movement, the welfare state and more. So, was their resistance really so unreasonable?
While metaverse advocates would like to paint skeptics as simply rooted in the past, at least some doubts are well founded. The reasons to be cautious of the next wave of technology are varied. One is simply whether the technologies in question are where they are claimed to be. If the company has a habit of over promising, few in the know will take its claims of inventions seriously.
Other more striking metaverse technologies rely on virtual reality, which still largely consists of heavy headsets and odd arm controls — all just to be able to operate an avatar through an awkward online world. VR has been “the next big thing” for decades and the public has consistently felt otherwise: there isn’t much to do once you are there, the technology gives many people motion sickness and, perhaps most problematically of all, the whole thing just seems extremely silly. Another popular innovation, health tracking, hasn’t caught the wider public by storm because many consumers worry about what will happen to their data.
There is much to anticipate as we bring online and offline worlds together. But we should learn not to dismiss concerns or caution about this, either. There are many rational reasons for people to take part in the techlash.
1. What does the underlined word “backlash” in Paragraph 2 most probably mean?
| A．Exposure. | B．Commitment. |
| C．Opposition. | D．Transformation. |
| A．It contributed to the success of the industrial revolution. |
| B．It made lower-skilled workers replaced by mills. |
| C．It led to the birth of the trade union movement. |
| D．It was launched largely for economic reasons. |
| A．are not interested in virtual reality |
| B．think some companies make overstatements |
| C．worry about the inaccuracy of their data collected |
| D．are embarrassed about wearing the awkward headsets |
| A．enthusiasts are being unreasonable |
| B．the public should stay cool-headed |
| C．most of the criticism is groundless |
| D．people should welcome new technology |
THE GROWING PROBLEM OF E-WASTE
The term e-waste is short for “electronic waste”. It refers to electrical or electronic products that are thrown away when they are no longer needed. These include computers, televisions, ovens, and basically anything else that runs on batteries or has an electrical cord.
E-waste has been a problem since the 1970s because of how difficult it is to separate things like metal and plastic from various products. Also, many electronics contain toxic materials that can pollute the environment if left in landfills. Over the past few decades, the problem of e-waste has only increased along with advancements in technology.
E-waste is now the fastest-growing waste stream around the world. The total amount of e-waste created every year is expected to reach 74 million tons by the year 2030. Currently, it’s estimated that only about 17 percent of global e-waste is properly recycled. However, the United Nations hopes to bring that number up to 30 percent by the end of 2023.
With more people using smartphones and computers every year, the problem of e-waste cannot be ignored. To increase the recycling rate of e-waste items, cities should consider adding special collection boxes at grocery stores or government offices. There should also be delivery or pick-up services for e-waste items. That way, these items can be sent directly to people who are able to properly take them apart and recover their useful components.
Despite current difficulties, e-waste has great recycling potential. In addition to the items thrown away, lots of people keep old devices that aren’t used anymore. As a whole, they add up to a lot of metals and minerals that can, and should, be recycled. If these components are recycled to make new products, there would be less of a need to dig for more around the world.
So, if you must replace your phone or computer, try returning the device to the manufacturer or dropping it off at an e-waste processing facility if there is one nearby.
1. What does “electronic waste” refer to?2. What is Paragraph 2 mainly about?
3. Decide which part of the following statement is wrong. Underline it and explain why.
▶In order to reduce e-waste, people had better keep old devices that aren’t used anymore or drop them off in special collection boxes.
4. Apart from the ways mentioned in the passage, please share your way(s) to reduce e-waste. (About 40 words)
When we think of green buildings, we tend to think of new ones — the kind of modern, solar-paneled masterpieces. But the US
An enormous amount of energy and
The oldest homes tend to be the least energy-efficient, mainly due to the tiny cracks and gaps that expand over time and let in more outside air.
Tom’s wife usually does the shopping, but she had the flu so Tom went instead. Selecting the fruits and vegetables went fine, but when he got to the bread section, he had trouble, because there were over 60 varieties to choose from. Tom compared different types and examined the differences. After 10 minutes of careful consideration, he picked one that seemed like the perfect choice. However, he had to repeat the process for the rest of the shopping list. By the time he had finished and paid for everything, he was tired and upset.
Why did Tom have this kind of experience? According to behavioral economics research, although having some options makes us feel good, once we get beyond that small number, the more choices we have, the less happy we feel.
The cause of our unhappiness has its root in one typical judgment error we make—our natural reactions prefer avoiding losses to making gains. This is probably because of our evolutionary(进化的) background; our minds evolved for the savanna(热带草原) environment, not for our modern shopping context. Due to this, when we have lots of options, we feel anxious about making the wrong choice and losing out on the best one.
Digging into research on factors that make a shopping trip an unhappy experience helps us improve our buying decisions. When choosing what to buy, the number one technique involves satisficing instead of maximizing.
Maximizing behavior refers to finding the perfect option when shopping. Maximizers compare all available options to make sure that they get the best deal in terms of performance, price, and so on. They have high expectations, and they hope that the product will meet their expectations.
It’s the opposite for satisficers. They set certain minimal criteria (最低标准) that need to be met, then search for the first available product that meets the criteria. They look for products that are “good enough” instead of “perfect”. When they focus on “good enough”, their brain automatically highlights the positives, and lowers the expectations.
Research shows that maximizing behavior results in less happiness, less satisfaction, and more regret than satisficing.
To be happier, satisfice and limit your choices. Make a short list that compares a reasonable number of options and doesn’t include every product available. After all, there’s no such thing as the perfect deal.
1. Why did Tom have trouble selecting bread? (不多于9个单词)2. According to the writer, what is the judgment error that causes our unhappiness? (不多于9个单词)
3. What products do satisficers look for? (不多于11个单词)
4. Do you agree that satisficers are happier in life? Why or why not? (单词数不限)
