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  3. There’s something about the Internet that can bring out meanness in teenager

There’s something about the Internet that can bring out meanness in teenager

游客2023-11-03  22
问题     There’s something about the Internet that can bring out meanness in teenagers.
    That is one finding of a study to be released Wednesday, reporting that nine in ten teenagers say they have witnessed cruelty by their peers on social networks.
    For the vast majority of teens, Facebook is the social network of choice. Incidents of mean and cruel behavior are pervasive and cut across all ages and backgrounds on social networks, according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, which surveyed 800 children between the ages of 12 and 17.
    The data on Internet experiences for young people is not all bad. Eight in ten teenagers said they have developed positive feelings about themselves and forged better friendships on social networking sites, according to Pew.
    Still, the prevalence of "mean" behavior—a term the center doesn’t define—raised concerns among child-safety advocates and parents who say adolescents may be subjecting themselves to unhealthy online environments. "For teens, these are exciting and rewarding spaces. But the majority have seen a darker side," said Amanda Lenhart, a co-author of Pew’s report, "Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites."
    Of course, bad behavior among children has been around as long as youngsters have stolen milk money and scribbled insults on bathroom walls, experts say. And online bullying is not as common as what takes place on the schoolyard or in the hallway, Pew said. But there is something about the ease of communication on the Internet that invites an abundance of commentary about peers, experts say. That escalates when people gang up on an individual. Of the teens who said they witnessed cruelty online, 21 percent said they joined in the harassment. Three out of 10 girls ages 12 to 13 said they have experienced mostly unkind treatment on social networks—the most negative response of any group of youth, according to the report.
    Lenhart and other experts on social media said teenagers see themselves differently online than in the real world. Some assume a sort of "alter ego" on the Web, engaging in conversation with more bravado(冒险)and taking more risks than they do when face to face with a peer, she said. Peers can be particularly cruel on sites such as FormSpring that allow users to post comments anonymously, or on the comment boards of sites such as YouTube, according to experts.
    Facebook—with 800 million global users—requires its members to use their real identities, which it thinks is one way to prevent anonymous bullying. It also allows users to block photos of and comments about themselves that they don’t like.
    But that hasn’t stopped all bullying. And some experts worry that younger adolescents are particularly vulnerable. Rachel Simmons, an author and speaker on children and social media, said bullying occurs most in middle school, yet parents are often helping their children get online when they are younger than 13, the minimum age required for Facebook.
    "The younger the kid, the meaner the peer group becomes, so this is an alert to parents that not every kid is ready for the independence of having their own social networking page," Simmons said. [br] What does the sentence " That escalates when people gang up on an individual" in Paragraph 6 mean?
选项 A、People respond more quickly and badly in group action.
B、Commentary floods when one is bullied online by others.
C、Online information runs more smoothly when people speak in groups.
D、Girls aged 12 to 13 are most likely to be harassed on social networks.
答案 B
解析 语义题。本文第六段第二、三句提到，网络恐吓不像发生在校园或过道里的恐吓行为那样常见。但是，网络交流的轻松便捷怂恿了对同龄人恶意评论的大量出现，接下来提到了“That escalateswhen people gang up on an individual．”由此可知，此句中的。That指代上句中提到的“对同龄人的恶意评论”，再根据后文作者用具体数据例证了青少年所遭受的网络残忍行为可知，此处作者的意思是说当一个人在网上被人欺负时，恶意评论便泛滥起来，故[B]为正确答案。
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