Every morning my father buys a newspaper on his way to work. Every evening my mother looks through magazines at home. And every night, I look at the posters with photos of David Beckham and Yao Ming on my bedroom wall before I go to sleep. Can we imagine life without paper or printing?

Paper was first created about 2,000 years ago, and has been made from silk, cotton, bamboo, and since the 19th century, from wood. People learned to write words on paper to make a book. But in those days, books could only be produced one at a time by hand. As a result, they were expensive and rare. And because there weren’t many books, few people learned to read.

Then printing was invented in China. When printing was developed greatly at the beginning of the 11th century, books could be produced more quickly and cheaply. After that, knowledge and ideas spread quickly.

Today information can be received online, downloaded from the Internet rather than only found in books. And information can be kept on CD-ROMs or machines such as iPads.

Computers are already used in classrooms, and newspapers and magazines can already be read online. So will books be replaced by computers one day? No, I don’t think the Yao Ming poster on my bedroom wall will be replaced by a two-metre-high computer!

OBSOLETE JOBS

In the past, there were lots of jobs that we don’t have anymore. Many of these jobs have been taken over by machines, but some have just disappeared altogether. Let me tell you about some of them.

1. Telegraph Operators

Long ago, people used telegraphs to send messages over long distances. It was like sending an old-fashioned text message, but you needed a telegraph operator to send it using a special machine. But now, we don’t have telegraph operators anymore!

2. Lift Operators

These days, when we want to go up or down in elevator, we just press a button. But a long time ago, before 1950, there were people called lift operators. They would ride in the elevator with you and operate it. Nowadays, we don’t see lift operators very often, but some still work in special places like the Eiffel Tower in Pairs.

3. Lamplighters

Back at the start of the 20th century, many cities used gas street lamps, not electric ones. Lamplighters had the job of going around in the evening and lighting these lamps with a big candle on a long stick. They would light about a hundred lamps in an hour. But today, we have electric streetlights, so lamplighters are gone.

4. Typesetters

Before we had computers, people used to make books and newspapers by hand. They had to arrange metal letters in wooden frames to create the pages. It was a bit like a big puzzle! Nowadays, computers help us do this work efficiently, so typesetters are not needed anymore.

5. Switchboard Operators

Believe it or not, in the past, when you wanted to make a phone call, you had to talk to an operator. You had to tell them the number you wanted to call, and they would connect your call for you. This job was mostly done by women at the beginning of the 20th century. But now, we can make phone calls without operators.

Will more jobs disappear in the future? It’s very likely. The world is changing so quickly that ________. That’s just how the world works!

The personal information collected by companies can be known by others.They use it for making money or for other bad things. According to a 2018 survey of 5,458 people by the China Consumers Association (中国消协), 89.2 percent of people said their personal information had been stolen by someone or some apps on their smart phones. Most said they got unwanted calls or text messages later.

Luckily, on Nov 1, people in China could use the Personal Information Protection Law to deal with this problem and make their information safe. It is the first law on personal information protection.

The law says personal information is any kind of information about people. It includes a person’s name, date of birth, ID number, address and phone number.

There are also some kinds of personal information that are thought as “sensitive (敏感的)”: fingerprints, faces, medical health, and all information on children under the age of 14.

According to the law, collecting, using, trading personal information will be strictly managed. One key rule is that those who deal with personal information should let users know and get their agreement. The rules are even stricter for sensitive information. For example, if companies want the personal information of a child, they need to get agreement from parents.

People must pay attention to their personal information. According to a survey by the China Consumers Association, 【小题1】 90% of people said their personal information had been stolen before. Luckily, the first law on personal information was made to protect the 【小题2】 of the personal information. From Nov. 1 on, anyone who steals others’ personal information is 【小题3】 the Personal Information Protection Law. The law explains what personal information is. It also points out sensitive information such as fingerprints, faces, medical health and other information on children under 14 should be 【小题4】. Companies can’t let others know a user’s information 【小题5】 they get the agreement.