Robyn Lee， a 15-year-old teenage girl who studies at York Community High School， US says she has four friends. But she also has 15 to 20 other friends she considers part of her regular social circle.

“It's like a bad thing to have only one， friend ，”explained Robyn. “If you have one friend， it means only one person likes you. That’s not cool，” she said.

For many years， experts studying teen friendships have known that teenagers prefer to travel in groups. In studies conducted in 1963 and in 1995， researchers found teen friendship groups averaged six people. In 2005， when teens were asked about how many friends they kept in touch with regularly， the average answer was 20.

The change to bigger -group friendships has advantages， such as increasing more connections and improving teens' self-pride by giving them a place to belong.

However， the change also has some disadvantages，say psychologists. “The meaning of friendship is becoming much more complicated，” said Bernardo Carducci， a professor of psychology at Indiana University Southeast.

MaryRose Moss， a 17-year-old in Chicago， knows how she could get more friends. She created a Facebook page when she was 14 and within months ， she had her group of 500 friends.

Text messaging has opened the door to many new connections， she says. “I'm friends with some people that I wouldn't be as close to if it weren't for technology，” said Moss. “It's so easy to send a text to somebody even if you don't know him very well. ”

Some psychologists wonder whether social-networking technology is affecting some skills children once got from making friends in the old-fashioned way.

“In the past， you argued， discussed and reached an agreement， but if somebody disagrees with you now， you can ‘defriend’ him with the click of keys，” said Carducci.

Marianne Boe， a social studies teacher in Chicago ， sees signs of changing friendships in the hallways. Ten years ago， she could easily know groups of girls who stayed friends through all four years of high school. “Today， it's harder，” Boe said.

The generation gap refers to the difference in opinions between the old and the young. It has some special determinants（决定因素），one of 【小题1】 is the choice of clothes. In many cases，old people don’t quite like the clothes young people wear. On the other hand，the youth argue that their clothes are fashionable，and dismiss（不接受）the ones【小题2】（wear）by their parents and grandparents.

Another obvious determinant is【小题3】 amount of technology used by different generations. Today，the younger generation use the【小题4】（new）technology. They believe they can achieve anything【小题5】 just clicking a buton. However，this view【小题6】（question）by the older generation saying the youth depend on technology too much to stand on their own feet.

The generation gap can be both good and bad. It’s good because it helps people experience and learn new things. However，it may turn out to be bad when one generation refuse to listen to the other generation or reject【小题7】 (they) ideas completely. This may result in bad and broken relationships. But，【小题8】 (fortunate)，overcoming their conflicts to bridge their generation gaps【小题9】（be）possible. The only thing people need【小题10】（do）is accept new things with an open heart.

Due to better equipment，training and diet，the records in many sports have been broken，but recently，improvements 【小题1】 (begin）to slow down. Thus some experts predict a ceiling for many events.

In order to enhance 【小题2】 (perform), some athletes take the drugs which can get people more excited and 【小题3】 (energy) than in a normal situation and which are originally developed 【小题4】 (help) people with illnesses.  Taking these drugs is known as“doping”and 【小题5】 they improve performance, they also cause serious health problems in later life for those who abuse them.

The Olympic spirit — the spirit of competition which 【小题6】 (emphasise) taking part rather than winning — 【小题7】 (violate) by the desire to succeed at all costs so far. So the sports world does not tolerate doping as it is 【小题8】 fundamental form of cheating. However, it appears as if all efforts are 【小题9】 vain to athletes.

Anyway，the fight will and must 【小题10】 (fierce) go on and we all hope the word“hero”won't lose its meaning.

   It is a familiar scene these days: employees taking newly laid-off co-workers out for a drink for comfort. But which side deserves more sympathy，the jobless or the still employed？On March 6，researchers at a conference at the University of Cambridge suggested it was the latter.

Brendan Burchell，a Cambridge sociologist，presented his analysis based on various surveys conducted across Europe. The data suggest that employed people who feel insecure in their jobs show similar levels of anxiety and depression as those who are unemployed. Although a newly jobless person's mental health may“bottom out”after about six months，and then may even begin to improve，the mental state of people who are continuously worried about losing their own job“just continues to get worse and worse”, Burchell says.

Psychologists support this theory by arguing that human beings feel more stressed during times of insecurity because they sense an immediate but invisible threat. Patients have been known to experience higher levels of anxiety, for example, while waiting for examination results than knowing what they are suffering from—even if the results are cancer. It's better to get the bad news and start doing something about it rather than wait with anxiety.  When the uncertainty continues, people stay in a nonstop“fight or flight”response, which leads to damaging stress.

But not every employee in insecure industries has such a discouraging view, Burchell says. In general, women get on better. While reporting higher levels of anxiety than men when directly questioned, women score lower in stress on the 12-item General Health Questionnaire, even when they have a job they feel insecure about losing.  As Burchell explains,“For women, most studies show that any job—it doesn't matter whether it is secure or insecure—gives psychological improvement over unemployment.”He supposes that the difference in men is that they tend to feel pressure not only to be employed, but also to be the primary breadwinners, and that more of a man's self-worth depends on his job.

Selfie

Social media and the mobile web have given rise to a strange phenomenon called the selfie. But not everyone is familiar with the term, so here’s a brief definition. 【小题1】 Everyone takes selfies, but the younger crowd seems to be especially involved in the trend. Some selfies are extreme close-ups, other show part of an arm held straight outward and a few of the great ones even feature the subject standing in front of a bathroom mirror so that they can get a full body shot of their reflection. 【小题2】 Since social media is the driving force of most selfie activity, younger kids interested in staying connected to their friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, etc. are more active in sharing selfies on a regular basis.

Who knows what kind of psychological factors drive any specific person to take a selfies and upload it to a social networking site. 【小题3】

Here's one. Not only are young people plugged into the web at all times, but they also have more self-esteem issues—and many of these teens or college kids might upload selfies to deal with their own self-consciousness. 【小题4】 When you feel good or look good about yourself, it's far too easy to reach for you phone and document it all through one or several selfies. Kids who are connected on a social network to someone they admire may be more driven to upload attractive selfies as a way to seek attention, especially if they're too shy to do it in person.

Besides, there are people who are bored at work, bored at school, etc. So they will take selfies because they have nothing else better to do. Last but not least, social media is about being social! If that means uploading as many selfies as possible, then so be it. 【小题5】 They just do it because they like to do it, it's fun, and it’s a cool way to sort of document your own life.