Contrary to common belief, social media websites such as Facebook do not weaken

Contrary to common belief, social mediawebsites such as Facebook do not weaken personal ties, they strengthen them inunique ways for different age groups, according to a new study．

The rapid spread of Facebook, which hasmore than 500 million users worldwide, has prompted concerns about its negativeeffects, but researchers at the University of Texas have reached a differentconclusion．

"Our findings suggest that Facebook isnot replacing face-to-face interactions between friends, family andcolleagues," said S．Craig Watkins, an associate professor of radio, TV and film whoheaded the research team．

"In fact, we believe there issufficient evidence that social media afford opportunities for new expressionsof friendship, intimacy and community．"

The researchers questioned 900 collegestudents and recent graduates about how and with whom they interact on Facebook．

More than 60 percent of Facebook users saidposting status updates was among the most popular activities, followed by 60percent who wrote comments on their profile and 49 percent who posted messagesand comments to friends．

The researchers also found that althoughabout the same number of men and women use Facebook, they do so in differentways．

"There is a noteworthy difference inaims in how to use a tool like Facebook．We found that for women the content tends to be more affectionate,and （they） are especially interested inusing it for connection," said Watkins．

"For men, it's more functional,"he added．

Watkins pointed out that, for example,women are more likely to post pictures of social gatherings with friends, whilemen are more likely to post pictures of hobbies, or post a political orpop-culture related link．

1.What's the popular viewpoint of ordinarypeople about the function of social media websites? They think ____．

2.What's the meaning of the underlined wordin the second paragraph?

3.What do Facebook users like to do mostlyon Facebook? They like to ____．

4.According to the study, ____．

试题答案

【答案】

1.B

2.D

3.C

4.A

【解析】略