Question

Should Parents Teach Children How to Tweet?

Social media is a seemingly endless source of concern for parents, with worries that it weakens their children’s confidence and attention spans. But others counter that it could also be broadening their horizons.

The latest round of worry was sparked by a study of the impact of social media use on 8-12- year-olds published by Anne Longfield, Children’s Commissioner for England. The report focused on 32 children, who said they used social media to stay connected with friends and family and to have fun, by watching videos for example. But they also described pressures from constant contact, online comments that weaken their self-esteem, and the need to shape offline activities to make them shareable. “You see your friends going ice skating, partying or talking about how much revision they have done, and it can make you feel inadequate,” says Bea, a junior school student from Bristol, UK. “It’s just so hard to get away from.”

Children have to take risks on their journeys to adulthood, and desires to fit in and be popular existed before Mark Zuckerberg came along with Facebook. However, in previous generations these pressures came largely from people they knew, and they mostly stayed outside the home. Now the pressures could come from any one of the nearly 3 billion people online, and follow them from school to home, and can even continue through the night.

The pressures do get on parents’ nerves, among which the utmost concern is how their children can be protected from harms, given that social media is now integral to the way many young people interact. A good starting point is a basic understanding of childhood development milestones.

Broadly, children have a high dependency on carers for security and guidance up to the age of 5, increasing independence and self-care from 6 to 11, and increasing autonomy and growing reliance on peers from 12-18 years old. Against this background, the suitability of social media for children of different ages should be considered respectively.

According to Longfield’s study, children should be taught about online safety from an early age, better before secondary school. There is growing evidence that efforts need to be extended to provide earlier guidance on less extreme but more common risks, including oversharing, low selfesteem, addiction and insomnia. The evidence suggests she is right. However, approaches that focus merely on the potential negatives are unlikely to work.

“My school has tried to do a lot, but it often involves trying to drill into us how bad social media can be,” says Bea. “People of my age really like social media, so I think a better approach would be if they said ‘Although it is good, here are some negatives’.”

1.We can learn from Paragraph 3 that ______.

A. children used to face more dangers

B. Facebook gives children the chance to fit in

C. parents give their children much pressure at home

D. children’s pressures may come from strangers nowadays

2.According to the passage, parents’ major concern for children is ______.

A. possible harm from social media B. comments from online friends

C. their reliance on social media D. pressures from oversharing

3.We can infer from Bea’s words that ______.

A. teenagers don’t believe social media has negatives

B. adults overemphasize the bad effects of social media

C. it is easy for teenagers to get addicted to social media

D. social media helps teenagers know their friends better

Answer

1.D

2.A

3.B

【解析】

本文是一篇说明文，介绍了家长们对孩子使用社交媒体的担心。

1.细节理解题。根据第三段中的“in previous generations these pressures came largely from people they knew, and they mostly stayed outside the home. Now the pressures could come from any one of the nearly 3 billion people online, and follow them from school to home, and can even continue through the night.”可知，前几代孩子的压力主要来自他们认识的人，现在孩子的压力可能来自于近30亿网民中的任何一个人，由此可知，如今，孩子的压力可能来自陌生人，故D项正确。

2.细节理解题。根据第四段中的“The pressures do get on parents’ nerves, among which the utmost concern is how their children can be protected from harms, given that social media is now integral to the way many young people interact.”可知，这些压力确实让家长们感到不安，其中最令人担忧的是他们如何才能保护孩子免受社交媒体的伤害，由此可知，父母主要担心的是社交媒体可能对孩子造成的伤害，故A项正确。

3.推理判断题。根据最后一段中的“People of my age really like social media, so I think a better approach would be if they said ‘Although it is good, here are some negatives’.”可知，Bea认为如果家长们这样说（尽管社交媒体很好，但也有一些负面影响）会是一个更好的办法，由此可知，Bea的话表明了家长过分强调了社交媒体的负面影响，故B项正确。