托福阅读材料：社交网络Facebook&Twitter

　　多积累一些托福阅读背景知识，对于托福阅读考试速度和准确率都有帮助，随着社交网络的广泛流行，对于人们产生的影响越来越大，下面分享一篇有关社交网络对人们生活的影响，希望能帮助大家多积累一些热门托福阅读材料。

　　Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves,who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback ontheir lives, a top scientist believes.

　　Repeated exposure to social networking sites leaves users with an 'identitycrisis', wanting attention in the manner of a toddler saying: 'Look at me,Mummy, I've done this.'

　　Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University,believes the growth of internet 'friendships' – as well as greater use ofcomputer games – could effectively 'rewire' the brain.

　　This can result in reduced concentration, a need for instant gratificationand poor non-verbal skills, such as the ability to make eye contact duringconversations.

　　More than 750million people across the world use Facebook to sharephotographs and videos and post regular updates of their movements and thoughts.Millions have also signed up to Twitter, the 'micro-blogging' service that letsmembers circulate short text and picture messages about themselves.

　　Baroness Greenfield, former director of research body the RoyalInstitution, said: 'What concerns me is the banality of so much that goes out onTwitter.

　　Why should someone be interested in what someone else has had forbreakfast? It reminds me of a small child (saying): “Look at me Mummy, I'm doingthis”, “Look at me Mummy I'm doing that”.

　　'It's almost as if they're in some kind of identity crisis. In a sense it'skeeping the brain in a sort of time warp.'

　　The academic suggested that some Facebook users feel the need to become'mini celebrities' who are watched and admired by others on a daily basis. Theydo things that are 'Facebook worthy' because the only way they can definethemselves is by 'people knowing about them'.

　　'It's almost as if people are living in a world that's not a real world,but a world where what counts is what people think of you or (if they) can clickon you,' she said.

　　'Think of the implications for society if people worry more about whatother people think about them than what they think about themselves.'

　　Vocabulary:

　　obsessed: 着迷的，痴迷的，迷恋的。

　　toddler: a child who has only recently learnt to walk(学步的儿童;刚学会走路的孩子)

　　pharmacology: the scientific study of drugs and their use inmedicine(药物学;药理学)

　　rewire: to put new electrical wires into a building or piece of equipment给(建筑物或设备)换新电线。文中是比喻用法。

　　gratification: the state of feeling pleasure when something goes well foryou or when your desires are satisfied; something that gives youpleasure(满足;满意)

　　non-verbal: not involving words or speech(不涉及言语的;非言语的)

　　circulate: to send goods or information to all the people in agroup(传送)

　　banality: the quality of being banal; things, remarks, etc. that arebanal(平庸;平淡乏味;陈腐的事物;陈词滥调)

　　time warp: an imaginary situation, described, for example, in sciencefiction, in which it is possible for people or things from the past or thefuture to move to the present 时间错位(如科幻小说中所描述的过去或将来的人或事都可能移到现在)

　　大量的托福阅读背景知识积累对于托福阅读非常有帮助，不管是英文原版还是中文翻译版，同学们都可以大量去阅读，熟悉内容即可。小编祝大家学习愉快!