Spending just a few hours a week online may make people feel more socially isolated(孤立的), lonely and downhearted(沮丧的), according to a two-year study of nearly 100 families with the Internet.
“We were surprised to find that social technology has such bad effects on social communications,” the lead author, Dr. Robert Kraut of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said in a statement to the news. The findings suggest that “Rather than encourage students to use the Internet alone for research, teachers might give pupils online group homework to complete with classmates. Local groups might build websites that allow neighbors to discuss local affairs(地方事务).”
“Before the technology develops and can be really more beneficial, people should control(控制) their wishes to use much of the Internet,” Dr. Kraut and other experts advise. In order to control their children and encourage family activities, parents might think of putting the computer in the living room rather than in a child’s room, they suggest.
Dr. Kraut also suggests that when surfing on the net, especially when chatting with strangers on the net, children should not use their real names, and that they should not tell the addresses, telephone numbers to the strangers.
Nowadays, a new term called SAHDs (stay-at-home dads) is becoming very popular. In the UK, there are 600,000 men who stay at home as full-time husbands. The number is 10 times more than 10 years ago. In the USA, there are at least 1.7 million unemployed (失业的) married men who depend on their wives.
SAHDs have increased in number around the world. There are three reasons to explain this.
First, the bad economic situation (经济形势) has caused the decline (衰退) in men’s traditional working fields, which has led to a large number of unemployed people.
Second, the social and cultural progress provides a possibility for such a change in families.
Third, the improvement in women’s education has also given them the chance to show their talents in work. Therefore, women are able to support their families.
According to a survey in the UK, most stay-at-home fathers said the reason for this was that the mother made more money. The survey also suggested the men that stayed at home were happier with this than the women, with 75% of fathers saying they were lucky to spend so much time with their children.
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