To many students, joining social media (社交媒体) “circles” is now more important than making new friends in real life.
And it’s easy. If you have a cell phone, you can download apps (应用程序) such as Sina Weibo, WeChat (微信) and QQ.
“I love to check my friends’ updates (更新). I also enjoy news and humor shared on social media,” Said Ou Wei, 14, from Hongling Middle School in Shenzhen. Because of enjoying these, Ou distances himself from real life. “I love playing the plane-shooting game on WeChat, but have no interest in playing flying chess with my classmates,” said Ou.
Deng Yunyun, 14, from Jianfeng Middle School in Shanghai, said that social media had influenced their life. Recently his school held a basketball match, and a student hurt his leg. Instead of giving him some help, students were busy with updating micro blogs about the accident.
“I think they need to learn to balance their real and online lives,” said Deng,
What makes parents and teachers worried is safety. “Many students are happy to tell their interests and personal information to their social media “friends”. Such information could bring them danger,” said Han Songjun, a teacher at Hongling Middle School.
For example, WeChat’s shake-shake function allows users to connect to other users close by. But the police warn about the danger of socializing in this way.
“Be careful. Do not use the locating (定位) function in any app, do not give your name, and do not post the photos of your residential area (小区),” said the police.
【小题1】 What is the possible meaning of the underlined word “distances” in Paragraph 3?

    When I was a child, my mother often told me, “Don’t run around, or bad uncles will grad（抓住） you. And you know what? You will never see Mum and Dad again.”

    “Why, Mama? Why would these uncles grab me?” I would ask. “The city is a dangerous place and we don’t trust any strangers, ”she would reply.

  Well, that might answer the question of why my second brother never picks up calls from an unknown person either on his mobile or his home phone. It seems that he doesn’t care if he misses an important call. because he thinks that all unknown calls are from bad persons.

    So, have we given too much protection to our young kids? Perhaps it is so. But the adults’ thoughts are indeed easy to understand. The kids meet swindlers sometimes as we adults tell them. Also they get some news about cheating（欺骗） in newspapers or on TV every day. That makes the kids believe that they just cannot trust strangers.

    Let’s look at an example from everyday life. Say, if someone carrying a wooden stick（棍子） comes nearer to you, will you try to run away at once even before he or she starts talking to you? Will you guess this person’s intentions（意图） and think that he or she wants to rob（抢劫） you of something? Think of the answer for yourself.

    Of course, the kids should look after themselves, but overprotection can sometimes stop them from making new friends. Sometimes it’s not good for their new friendships.

    Trust is like a mirror. When we offer trust to people, they might just show you trust in return.

1 What do “swindlers” probably do?

  A. They cheat other people.

  B. They often call other people.

  C. They rob people of something.

  D. They teach children to protect themselves.

2 Which of the following is NOT the reason why children don’t trust strangers?

  A. Their parents tell them not to trust strangers.

  B. They get to know some news about cheating in newspapers or on TV every day.

  C. Strangers always have bad intentions.

  D. They sometimes have experiences of being cheated.

3 What does the writer want to tell us?

  A. Children should always follow their parents’ advice.

  B. We should never talk to strangers.

  C. Parents should learn to protect their children.

  D. People should try to trust each other.