Mr. White is sixty years old. He always talks about how fast things have changed, and he often says that life in the past was better than it is these days.

Now cities are full of cars. Some families even have two or more cars, so parking is becoming a big problem. The traffic (交通) in some cities is getting worse and worse, too. Car drivers drive so fast that there are more traffic accidents.

More and more people are always looking at their mobile phones with their heads down. Mr. White often sees people in the restaurant eating face to face while looking at their own mobile phones. He thinks it is strange that they don’t talk to the ones who sit opposite to them during the meal. Some of them even have fun chatting (闲聊) with others on the phone.

Most families own computers now. A study found that children use the Internet more and more. The number of children using the Internet has grown by three times in the past three years. Mr. White’s grandson is a middle school student. He often stays up late playing computer games on the Internet. He falls asleep in the early hours of the morning and spends less time doing homework. His teacher told Mr. White that his grandson failed (失败) another test. Mr. White got very angry with him.

Mr. white thinks that life was simple and happy, but now it has changed a lot.

Tony is 17 years old. He has many friends. They look different and they have different personalities. He’d like to tell us about some of them.

Name	Job	Age	Looks and hobbies
Ann	volleyball player	17	She’s very tall (1.87 meters)! She has a baby face. She’s very beautiful. She likes listening to pop music and drawing.
Jim	skiing player	18	He’s always smiling, so people call him “sunshine boy”. He’s a “black horse”. He won the first gold medal for his city this year. He likes reading and playing computer games.
Lily	singer	16	People call her “Angel”. She’s a cool girl with black glasses and short hair. She likes wearing T-shirts. She likes singing, of course. She’s good at playing basketball.