Smoking is the shortest way to bad health. Today half of the men and a quarter of the women in the world smoke. Only 13% of the population smoke in the USA, but in Russia more than 70%. If people

The Problem of Smoking

Smoking is the shortest way to bad health. Today half of the men and a quarter of the women in the world smoke. Only 13% of the population smoke in the USA, but in Russia more than 70%.
If people want to be healthy and live a long happy life, they must stop smoking and drinking much. Everyone should remember that cigarettes [ˌsɪɡəˈret], alcohol and drugs destroy [dɪˈstrɔɪ] both body and brain. It is common knowledge that smoking and drinking can shorten our lives dramatically. The life of the people who smoke is 25 per cent shorter. Cigarette-smoking kills about three million people every year. Many of them die from lung cancer. Some aren’t even smokers.

Four hundred thousand people die in Russia every year as a result of smoking.

Yet many young people smoke and drink. Why? On the one hand, many teens think it cool. It looks smart in old films, and it seems that everybody does it. On the other hand, tobacco [təˈbækəʊ] and drinks companies invest large sums of money in advertising [ˈædvətaɪzɪŋ] their products. For them cigarettes and alcoholic [ˌælkəˈhɒlɪk] drinks mean money. For us they mean disease and even death.

If teenagers think smoking cool, they should remember these very sad facts about smoking. Those who smoke have yellow teeth and bad breath. Their hair and skin have a terrible smell and they are dry. Smoking causes heart attacks. Nicotine isn’t the only bad things in cigarettes, there are over four hundred chemicals in one cigarette that are known to be harmful. Babies with mothers who smoke develop more slowly during childhood.

What’s more, smoking is unpleasant and harmful for non-smokers, too, and a serious fire risk. It is offensive in public places like cafes and schools. Any form of addiction is unhealthy, whether it is tobacco, alcohol, drugs, sugary things, or money. It can be a sign of not growing up and not being able to cope. I think those who smoke are weak because if they see somebody smoking they join them. Only strong people don’t follow the crowd.

Fortunately, in recent years smoking has received a lot of bad publicity, and fewer people smoke nowadays. Some companies don’t employ people who are smokers. Smoking is banned in most public places, because everyone agrees it does harm to our health.
A lot of smokers would like to give up smoking, but it is not so easy. There is a special day and it is the 16th of November when people all over the world quit smoking.

As for me, I don’t smoke because I want to be healthy and fit and don’t want to have bad skin and teeth.

Internet and modern Life

The Internet has already entered our ordinary life. Everybody knows that the Internet is a global computer network, which helps us to communicate with each other.
The history of the Internet began in the United States in 1969. Information sent over the Internet takes the shortest way from one computer to another. Because of this, any two computers on the net will be able to stay in touch with each other as long as there is a single route [ruːt] between them. This technology was called packet switching.
Invention of modems [ˈməʊdem], special devices sending the information using a telephone line, has opened doors to the Internet for millions of people.
Most of the Internet host computers are in the United States of America. It is clear that the number of users can be counted approximately [əˈprɒksɪmətli], nobody knows exactly how many people use the Internet today, because there are hundreds of millions of users and their number is growing.
Nowadays the most popular Internet service is e-mail. Most of the people use the network only for sending and receiving e-mail messages. They can do it either they are at home or in the Internet clubs or at work. Other popular services are available on the Internet too. We can find any information we need. We can learn languages and other useful things via the Internet. A lot of different websites help us to read news, watch different films and video clips, listen to music and communicate with the help of different messengers, where we can use typing, head phones, a microphone [ˈmaɪkrəfəʊn] and a web camera to be in touch with the people all over the world.
In many countries, the Internet provides businessmen with a reliable [rɪˈlaɪəbl] communication system. Commercial users can communicate cheaply over the Internet with the rest of the world. When they send e-mail messages, they only have to pay for phone calls to their local service providers, not for international calls around the world, when you pay a lot of money.
But saving money is only the first step and not the last one. There is a commercial use of this network. Now you can work and play via the Internet.
However, there are some problems. The most important problem is security [sɪˈkjʊərəti]. When you send an e-mail, your message can travel through many different networks and computers. The data is constantly being directed towards its destination [ˌdestɪˈneɪʃn] by special computers (called routers). Because of this, it is possible to get into any of the computers along the route, and change the data being sent over the Internet.

Another problem is the Internet addiction, an over-dependency on the Internet. Such people spend more than 6 hours a day online. An international group of psychologists [saɪˈkɒlədʒɪst] has recently suggested that anyone who surfs the Internet for long periods is clinically ill and needs medical treatment. According to their report, Internet addicts [ˈædɪkt] should be treated in the same way as alcoholics, drug addicts, compulsive [kəmˈpʌlsɪv] (заядлый, непреодолимый) gamblers (азартные игроки) and people with eating disorders. School work of such students is too bad. What's more, their addiction [əˈdɪkʃn] also destroys their social life and their spare-time interests. For example, they often drop out of their school’s sport teams in order to spend more time at their computers. Instead of spending next weekend having a good time out with friends, they'll be spending it indoors surfing the Internet.

The third big and serious problem of the net is control. Yes, there is no effective [ɪˈfektɪv] control on the Internet, because of a huge amount of information. It is like a large library and market together. In the future, the situation might change.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-04