While the Internet brings people closer together, it also harms friendships.

Firstly, talking online can’t【小题1】 face-to-face contact. According to a parenting expert, Denise Daniels, communicating through a screen makes it harder for children to concentrate or show kindness to others. As we know, important social skills, which enable us   to develop lifelong friendships, are developed 【小题2】   direct contact   with others.

Secondly, the Internet makes people self-centered. For example, instead of communicating with their friends, some are only【小题3】 with their online popularity―the number of “likes” or followers, which we know can’t compare to having long-term and rewarding friendships. Besides, much of the 【小题4】   posted on social media     does not have a lot of significant value. Posts about funny cat images can’t help form meaningful relationships.

Thirdly,   online relationships   may not be as they appear. Friendships are built based on【小题5】, and with   online communication you can’t be certain that the people you are chatting to are being honest about their identities. Therefore, going online can be dangerous for people who are easily influenced or too trusting of strangers.

I think the best way to maintain healthy relationships is to 【小题6】   more   on face-to-face communication,   and less on online communication.

They’re still kids, and although there’s a lot that the experts don’t yet know about them, one thing they do agree on is that what the kids use and expect from their world has changed rapidly. And it’s all because of technology.

To the psychologists, sociologists, and media experts who study them, their digital devices set this new group   【小题1】 , even from their Millennial (千禧年的) elders, who are quite familiar with technology. They want to be constantly connected and available in a way even their older brothers and sisters don’t quite get. These differences may seem slight, but they【小题2】 the appearance of a new generation.

The 【小题3】 between Millennialelders and this younger group was so evident to psychologist Larry Rosen that he has 【小题4】 the birth of a new generation in a new book, Rewired: Understanding the ingeneration and the Way They Learn, out next month. Rosen says the technically 【小题5】 life experience of those born since the early 1990s is so different from the Millennial elders he wrote about in his 2007 book, Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation, that they distinguishthemselves as a new generation, which he hasgiven them the nickname of “ingeneration”.

Rosen says portability is the key. They are【小题6】from their wireless devices, which allow them to text as well as talk, so they can be constantly connected—even in class, where cell phones are 【小题7】 banned.

Many researchers are trying to determine whether technology somehow causes the brains of young people to be wired differently. “They should be distracted and should perform more poorly than they do,” Rosen says. “But findings show teens 【小题8】 distractions much better than we would predict by their age and their brain development.”

Because these kids are more devoted to technology at younger ages, Rosen says, the educational system has to change 【小题9】 .

“The growth on the use of technology with children is very rapid, and we run the risk of being out of step with this generation as far as how they learn and how they think. We have to give them options because they want their world 【小题10】 ,” Rosen says.

A breed of upstart apps is taking on an internet function that might seem unneeded or even ill-【小题1】: helping teens talk to strangers.

Branded as “social discovery” services, these apps pitch themselves as alternatives to outlets that already specialize in online connections, like Facebook and Instagram. They say they are better at helping young users meet like-minded people outside their existing circles. And they say they have 【小题2】, such as separating users by age and using artificial intelligence, to protect against the inappropriate or unsafe behavior that has caused problems to previous attempts to connect young people online.

Their user numbers suggest that, whether they succeed in striking the right balance, apps like Yubo and Hoop are 【小题3】 into a need among teens and 20-somethings for new ways to branch out online. “There is no place today to socialize online, ” says Sacha Lazimi, the 26-year-old French co-founder of Yubo, which connects strangers with messaging and live-【小题4】.

It is a counterintuitive statement for anyone who has seen teens sending Snaps rapid fire to their friends, responding to videos on TikTok, FaceTiming for hours, or using Instagram. But Mr. Lazimi thinks those platforms allow for too much passive 【小题5】. “Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok are all about performance, content and individual behavior,” he says.

Yubo 【小题6】 a swiping interface similar to that of Tinder. But Mr. Lazimi insists it is not a dating app. The point, he says, is to facilitate communication between people all over the world who share mutual interests. Yubo isn’t 【小题7】 everywhere in the lives of American teens yet -and perhaps never will be- but the company says the app has 25 million users signed up, with nearly half of daily use now coming from America.

But some of these apps have also been the 【小题8】 of safety concerns. Yubo has also faced its Own safety challenges. In Florida, law-enforcement officials say they arrested a man who reportedly lured(诱骗) a teenager through Yubo.

In a statement, Yubo said that the prevention of child abuse has been a key 【小题9】 for the past three years. “Yubo recognizes its responsibility in protecting young people using its service and has gone far beyond many of the main social-media services.”

“However, actually teens are 【小题10】 with more to protect themselves than expected”, says Dr. Hinduja. “They are doing something to keep themselves safe or we would have strikingly more victimization than we do.”