Английский язык: Сборник текстов и упражнений. Иваненко Т.И. - 58 стр.

                                            PART II

TEXTS FOR READING

                                           INTERVIEW

       Q: Adam, what is the most popular means of communication in the United States?
       Right now in the United States everybody talks on e-mail, everybody writes e-mails to
each other. Even, I know, there's… It's not called “ICQ” in America, We call it “Instant Messag-
ing”, it's basically the same thing, where you have a list of friends, and you can just click on a
name and have a dialogue with them over the computer. And even this happens regularly nowa-
days with young kids at work; all day long they sit at their desks, and they talk with their friends
over the Instant Messaging about everything. You can send smiley faces. Even this quick one-to-
one communication over the computer, over the Internet at work is really how a lot kids talk. In
communicating like with my parents, or my mom, or my brothers and sisters, I always use e-
mail. I rarely call them on the phone. Using e-mail is very quick. I know that now mobile phones
have…you don't even have to dial a number, you can just push a button on your phone, and you
talk to them, like it's a walkie-talkie. Everyone is buying mobile phones nowadays. But basically
I would say that for the most part e-mail is the way to go. But my father, he does not know how
to use a computer at all, so, I still have to call him on the phone and talk to him that way. I rarely
write letters. With my grandparents - I write letters, they write me letters, cards, but most of all
e-mail. Very much so.
       Q: Do you get paper mail?
       Well, this is interesting because now, the majority of mail in the United States, we call
'junk mail', because it's all advertisements, and so, everybody pretty much just throws paper mail
away. Occasionally there is something good, but for the most part it's either bills or advertise-
ments, or other such junk that people don't want to keep. So, we just pretty much throw it away,
which is really bad, because, you know, people are making all this…wasting all this paper on
mail, that people throw away. Even the companies, that are sending the junk mail, of course, they
receive junk mail when they get home.
       And I'm sure they probably do the same thing so, I’m not sure, why people send outs much
paper mail. I think in companies, of course, with legal documents or with other official letters,
they have to send these out in the mail, so, right now, basically, a lot of the paper mail is official
documents, that have to be signed, but even now with the creation of certain software, people e-
mail documents to each other to have them signed, like say, between companies; and I know,
that now over the internet there's going to be an electronic signature, where you'll be able to just
put your signature on a piece a paper on your computer and then send it over the internet, so, I
would think that paper-mail pretty soon is gonna be almost non-existent. I know that some com-
panies in California believe that they have gone to what's called “a paperless workforce”, which
means that everything is done over the e-mail and on Internet, and nothing is printed out, and
everything is saved on to computers.
       Q: How often do you get junk mail on Internet? In Russia we call it “Spam”. It’s also e-
mails that we receive, that we don't want. Sometimes it's called “bulk mail”, but it's also junk
mail. But also on your computer you can select certain things that you don't receive junk mail,
junk e-mails anymore. But I think it's happening more and more often, that you receive junk e-
mails as well. Cause there's certain devices on computers, where people can receive your email,
and then they put you on to a specific list serve, and then they send you junky mails. This is all
very… I don't like it. If I want to buy something myself, I will go to the store and buy it. So to
receive all this junk mail, like not only in the paper mail, but in the e-mail and…I hear now that
even some people are gonna start receiving phone calls from solicitors, and that's just gonna be
more of a mess. I don't particularly like junk mail.
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