英语学习范文+单词以及句子赏析

Is true friendship dying away?

Mark Vernon

1

To anyone paying attention these days,it's clear that social media—whether

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the countless other modern-day water coolers—are changing the way we live.

2

Indeed, we might feel as if we are suddenly awash in friends. Yet right before our eyes, we're also changing the way we conduct relationships. Face-to-face chatting is giving way to texting and messaging; people even prefer these electronic exchanges to, for instance, simply talking on a phone. Smaller circles of friends are being partially eclipsed by Facebook acquaintances routinely numbered in the hundreds. Amid these smaller trends, growing research suggests we could be entering a period of crisis for the entire concept of friendship. Where is all this leading modern-day society? Perhaps to a dark place, one where electronic stimuli slowly replace the joys of human contact.

3

Awareness of a possible problem took off just as the online world was emerging. Sociologist Robert Putnam published the book Bowling Alone, a survey of the depleting levels of \to bowling alleys. The pattern has been replicated elsewhere in the Western world. In the United Kingdom, the Mental Health Foundation just published The Lonely Society, which notes that about half of Brits believe they're living in, well, a lonelier society. One in three would like to live closer to their families, though social trends are forcing them to live farther apart.

4

Typically, the pressures of urban life are blamed: In London, another poll had two-fifths of respondents reporting that they face a prevailing drift away from their closest friends. Witness crowded bars and restaurants after work: We have plenty of acquaintances, though perhaps few individuals we can turn to and share deep intimacies. American sociologists have tracked related trends

on a broader scale, well beyond the urban jungle. According to work published in the American Sociological Review, the average American has only two close friends and a quarter don't have any. Shallow friendships

5

It should be noted that other social scientists contest these conclusions. Hua Wang and Barry Wellman, of the universities of Southern California and Toronto respectively, refer to \possible decline in social connectivity.\connectivity.\networking sites and the like have grown exponentially, the element that is crucial, and harder to investigate, is the quality of the connections they nurture.

6

Yet we know that less is more when it comes to deeper relationships. It is

lonely in the crowd. A connection may only be a click away, but cultivating a good friendship takes more.It seems common sense to conclude that \—as the neologism \itself implies.

7

It is striking that loneliness should be regarded as a mental health issue, and that seems right. At least since the ancient Greeks, it has been recognized in our political philosophies that we are social animals. Aristotle was just one thinker to remark that an individual could have everything that life can offer—career, family and money—but if a person didn't have a good friend, his or her life would be fundamentally lacking. A society that thwarts opportunities for deeper sociality, therefore, stymies well-being.

8

No single person is at fault, of course. The pressures on friendship today are

broad. They arise from the demands of work, say, or a general busyness that means we have less quality time for others. How many individuals would say that friendship is the most important thing in their lives, only to move thousands of miles across the continent to take up a better-paid job? It starts with childhood

9

Of course, we learn how to make friends—or not—in our most formative

years, as children. Recent studies on childhood, and how the contemporary life of the child affects friendships, are illuminating. Again, the general mood is one of concern, and a central conclusion often reached relates to a lack of what is called \

10

Structured time results from the way an average day is parceled up for our

kids—time for school, time for homework, time for music practice, even time for play. Yet too often today, no period is left unstructured. After all, who these days lets his child just wander off down the street? But that is precisely the kind of fallow time so vital for deeper friendships. It's then that we simply \with no tasks, no deadlines and no pressures. It is in those moments that children and adults alike can get to know others for who they are in themselves.

11

If there is a secret to close friendship, that's it. Put down the device; engage the person.

12

Aristotle had an attractive expression to capture the thought: Close friends,

he observed, \the salt across the meal table. It's that they sit with one another across the course of their lives, sharing its savor—its moments, bitter and sweet. \desire for friendship comes quickly; friendship does not,\remarked. It's a key insight for an age of instant social connectivity, though one in which we paradoxically have an apparently growing need to be more deeply connected.

真正的友谊正在消亡吗？

马克?弗农

近来，不管是推特网、脸谱网、领英网还是现代办公室里的无数闲聊，社交媒体正在改变着我们的生活方式，对于有心人而言，这一点显而易见。

确实如此，我们似乎感到突然之间好友数量井喷。 不过，我们眼下也正在改变为人处世的方式。 面对面的聊天正在被短信取代；相比打个电话，人们甚至更愿意使用这些电子交流方式。 脸谱网上的熟人圈儿动辄数百人，相比之下，现实生活中规模较小的朋友圈则显得黯淡少光。 在这些较细微的趋势中，越来越多的研究表明友谊的整个概念正在遭受危机，而我们也许正在迈向这个危机时代。 所有这一切要把现代社会引向何方？ 也许现代社会就此陷入黑暗深渊，在这个深渊里，人与人之间交往的乐趣慢慢地被电子诱惑所取代。

在网络世界出现之初，有人就意识到了可能出现的问题。 社会学家罗伯特?普特南曾经出版名为《独自打保龄球》一书。该书调查了从教堂到保龄球馆诸多社群中的社会资本正在逐步耗竭的现象。 在美国以外的西方世界，一模一样的模式也已出现。 在英国，精神健康基金会刚刚发表一篇名为《孤独的社会》的报告。报告指出将近一半的英国人认为他们活得比以前更孤独。 三分之一的人愿意靠近家人居住，但是社会发展趋势正在迫使他们不断远离家人。

都市生活的压力一向难辞其咎。在伦敦，根据另外一次民调，五分之二的受访者表明他们被