“REMOVE from friends.”
This is no ordinary button. One click and I have the power to erase a person from my life.
In late fall, I had around 400 friends on Facebook. Today, I have 134.
Click. Make that 133.
When Facebook first entered my life in 2005, I panicked（恐慌、擔心） that my friend count was too low. If I wasn’t properly connected, how would anyone see my clever quote(引語)? Who would wish me a happy birthday? I accepted and sent out friend requests without a second thought and soon accumulated 391 friends.
There is an appeal to being able to communicate with someone or just “thumbs(撥動手指) up” a photo rather than make real conversation.
“It’s comforting and it’s easy,” said Larry Rosen, a psychology professor at California State University, who studies the way people communicate online.” There’s a sense of belonging in it. It’s a sense of community in a generation where community has sort of (有點)disappeared.”
However, I don’t talk to half of these people in the online community. There are some I would avoid if I met them on the street.
Click. 132.
I decided to rid my account of any “friend” that…well, wasn’t. Sound easy? You try it.
Look at who you’re dealing with: family, friends, classmates, crushes(愛戀的對象), acquaintances…
With every click of the “Remove from friends” button, you risk burning a bridge, losing a contact and missing an opportunity. So every time I go to click the button, my heart hurts.
However, I’m not the only one who has experienced a Faceboook friend refreshing. The New Oxford American Dictionary announces its “Word of the Year” each year, and last year, “unfriend” made the cut (入圍) (though I’ll still stick with “defriend”).
When I started my mission(任務),
a few friends joined. Most were surprised by how easily they could cut hundreds of connections without thinking twice.
“Oh my God, I defriended like 600 people today. I feel so good!” my friend Sarah messaged.
Dana, a close friend from high school, and I battled it out to see who could get our counts lower. She wins at 123.
To some, it’s poor “netiquette(網絡禮儀)” to defriend. But to me, it’s the stage of life when we hold onto the people who count, the people who impact you.
小題1:According to the article, what happens when you click the “Remove form friends” button?
| A．A message is sent out to your online friends. |
| B．You accept someone as your online friend. |
| C．You send out a friend request to people. |
| D．The number of your online friends is reduced. |
小題2:The writer worried about her friend count in 2005 because ______.
| A．no one would wish her a happy birthday |
| B．it was the first time she had made friends online |
| C．she had only 391 online friends at that time |
| D．she was eager to make connections |
小題3:What is Larry Rosen’s opinion?
| A．People living in the same area are closely connected in everyday life. |
| B．Communication online helps people feel they are members of a group. |
| C．It’s easy for people to make and break new friendships online. |
| D．Today’s young people spend nearly all their time communicating online. |
小題4:Which of the following is the best description of the underlined sentence?
| A．I made new friends online while I removed some old ones. |
| B．Some friends cut the number of their online friends just like I did. |
| C．We competed to see who could remove the most online friends. |
| D．When someone removed me from a friends’ list, I removed him/her. |
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