2010泉州21st century English Speech Contest

Online friendship

    As is known to us, with the rapid development of the Internet, we are stepping into a new era which changes rapidly and instantly. Everything is changing and everything is improving, even the relationship is no longer what it used to be，which is sometimes beyond your imagination.

   I don’t know whether you ever run into this kind of situation. When you are sitting in front of the screen，chatting happily with your classmates，your mum is always complaining ：“Are you playing computer game? No，are you chatting with your classmates again? Then since you meet with your classmates everyday. What on earth are you chatting about?” I really don’t know how to answer this question. Although I spent lots of time chatting online, think for a while, I really don’t know what we are chatting about. It seems that chatting online is a way to kill the time.

    But a precious experience changed my point of view. One day ,I was wondering online ，a name— draw my attention. Curiously I tired to chat with him. Immediately, he gave me a response. I don’t know why, a great thrill involved me,worried ，excited, and curiously ，we chatted for a long time. To tell the truth ，the feeling is complex, you wanted to make friends with him，but at the same time ，you were worried about being cheated. But，with time going on ，the doubt and suspect fade little by little，we spend a lot of happy time together. He told me a lot of things about his college life，including his anecdoutes about his professors and his classmates. I shared with him things about my senior life. When I met difficulties and felt down，he always encouraged me，he is just like my elder brother. I have treasured this online friendship for 2 years as I benefit a lot from it.From then on,when my mum ask me the same question, I can ansewer her confidently,”I’m not chatting with my classmates now. Guess what? I’m chattint with a online friend whom I haven’t ever seen before.but we really hit it off.”

    When some one asks me ，whether online friendship is true or not，having read so much news about cheatings and criminals between the so called online friends，I still hold the view that online friendship is true，as long as you use the Internet properly and rationally.Of course，don’t depend too much on the Internet.

     Maybe , online friendship is much purer than the so called real friendship，since online ，appearance，age and status all become not so important，and this encourages us to be open and honest，which makes it a lot easier to make friends，to be open with our emotions and ideas to discuss favorite topics.

    How miraculous! Thanks to the new technology, we can make friends any time we want !