UNIT 4
Unit 4, Technology, The Q
Classroom Page 69
Teacher: The Unit 4 question is, “How does.............. affect our relationships?” What do
you think, Felix?
Felix: Hmm. I think it makes it easier..........................with friends who are far away.
One of my best friends moved to Barcelona last year. But we talk to each other
daily through ............... and social media.
Teacher: I see what you mean. How about you, Sophy? Do you agree with Felix?
Sophy: I do, but I see a..................... side to technology, too. Like sometimes I’m with
friends after class, and we’re all just looking at our................ ....................... We don’t
talk to each other like we used to.
Teacher: Yes, I see students doing that all the time. Yes, Marcus?
Marcus: I agree with Sophy about the negative side. In my family, we all spend too
much time alone in our rooms, on the phone, and looking at video .................. We
need to spend more time with each other without these screens.
Teacher: What do you think, Yuna?
Yuna: I agree. In my family, we ................... to have one evening a week as family night.
We turn everything off and do things like play board games or just talk.
Unit 4, Note-taking Skill,
Activity B Page 70
Reporter: In the past,1.................... letters would take weeks or even months to reach a
......................... Today, we think it is natural to be able to ..................... instantly with
friends all over the world. We can call, text, or email in a matter of seconds. The
first person to send ..................................electronically over long distances was
Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Morse sent his first telegraph
message in 1844. In 1866, a telegraph line was laid across the Atlantic Ocean to
connect North America with Europe.
The telegraph could not send voice messages. It sent only a series of beeps. To
use these sounds to send messages, Morse invented a code, called the Morse
Code. In this code, different combinations of long beeps (dashes) and short
beeps (dots) represented the letters of the alphabet. For example, to send the
word cat, the telegraph operator would tap out dash-dot dash-dot for C, dot-
dash for A, and just one dash for T. Like this: (sound of a telegraph tapping out
C-A-T) The most famous Morse Code message has three dots, three dashes,
and
© Copyright Oxford University Press Page 23 of 61
Q3e Listening & Speaking 2: Audio Script
then three more dots. It stands for SOS, the universal signal for Help! Morse’s
invention had a huge impact on communications and also on history in more
ways than we can count.
Unit 4, Listening 1, Part 1, Activity A
Page 72
Online Friendships
Professor: Good morning everyone, and welcome to Social Psychology 101. The aim of
this course is to study many different forms of human communication. Today
I’ll be talking about some effects of social media on human relationships.
First, I’ll begin by sharing some data about social media. Then we’ll discuss how
social media sites are affecting friendships. What does it mean to have an
online friend? Can someone you know only through social media really be a
friend? And finally, we will look at some of the problems with social media use,
especially the issue of privacy.
Unit 4, Listening 1, Part 2,
Activities B and D Page 73
Professor: Let’s look at some numbers. As of 2018, 88 percent of people in the United
States between the ages of 18 and 29 used social media. Sixty-nine percent of
adults had online friends. Most users visited social media sites at least once a
day, and some several times a day. Worldwide, about 2.62 billion people
used social media in 2018. Those numbers are going up every year, and this
trend will almost certainly continue.
So, let’s discuss the issue of online friends. I recently saw negative headlines
about this topic. One newspaper had an article titled, “Nobody has real friends
anymore.” The article argued that online friends aren’t real friends. Note that
many people have hundreds of online friends, but no one can have meaningful
relationships with 500 people.
Professor Robin Dunbar is a researcher at Oxford University. He did a study of
more than 3,000 social media users in the United Kingdom. Their average
number of online friends was about 150. Of these, usually fewer than ten were
close friends, or people the user had meaningful relationships with. Of course,
some online friends may also be friends off-line; you know, close friends that
we frequently see face to face.
Dunbar also sees good things about having friends on social media. He
mentions particularly that friendships often “decay”—that is, friends become
less close—when they are physically separated, for example, when one friend
© Copyright Oxford University Press Page 24 of 61
Q3e Listening & Speaking 2: Audio Script
moves far away. With social media, it’s easier to stay in touch1 and keep
friendships alive.
Finally, we can’t talk about social media without mentioning some of the
problems and dangers that exist. On social media, people are sharing more
information about themselves with more people than ever before. Our lives are
becoming more public and less private. A recent study found that more than
half of people who use social media do not trust these sites to protect their
information.
Once information is posted on social media it can be hard or impossible to
delete it. It may stay online forever. It’s also difficult to control who can see it.
Users don’t stop to think Do I want my boss to see this picture or read that
comment?
There are also problems with the “tone” of online conversations. The same
study found that more than 50 percent of users think online discussions are
“less respectful” and “angrier” than face-to-face discussions.
To sum up, there are probably more questions than answers about the effects
of social media on friendships. How are online friendships changing “real-life”
friendships? How are our ideas about privacy changing? In some ways, things
are the same. In real life and online there will always be those “friends” who
share information they shouldn’t. There will always be people who have angry
arguments online and off. But online these things affect more people more
quickly.
By the way, here’s one more interesting bit of information about Professor
Dunbar. You won’t find him on social media. He says he prefers talking to
friends face to face, over a good meal!
Unit 4, Critical Thinking
Strategy, Activity G Page 74
Professor: Finally, we can’t talk about social media without mentioning some of the
problems and dangers that exist. On social media, people are sharing more
information about themselves with more people than ever before. Our lives
are becoming more public and less private. A recent study found that more
than half of people who use social media do not trust these sites to protect
their information.
Once information is posted on social media it can be hard or impossible to
delete it. It may stay online forever. It’s also difficult to control who can see it.
1 stay in touch: idiom to keep a connection with another person
© Copyright Oxford University Press Page 25 of 61
Q3e Listening & Speaking 2: Audio Script
Users don’t stop to think Do I want my boss to see this picture or read
that comment?
There are also problems with the “tone” of online conversations. The same
study found that more than 50 percent of users think online discussions are
“less respectful” and “angrier” than face-to-face discussions.
Unit 4, Listening Skill,
Activity A Page 75
1. Professor Robin Dunbar is a researcher at Oxford University. He did a study
of more than 3,000 social media users in the United Kingdom. Their average
number of online friends was about 150.
2. I recently saw negative headlines about this topic. One newspaper had an
article titled, “Nobody has real friends anymore.” The article argued that online
friends aren’t real friends.
3. The same study found that more than 50 percent of users think online
discussions are “less respectful” and “angrier” than face-to-face discussions.
Unit 4, Listening Skill,
Activity B Page 75
Speaker: Tanja Hollander is an artist who lives in the state of Maine. She works with
photography and video. She’s also interested in studying the effects of social
media on relationships.
On New Year’s Eve 2010, Hollander was alone at home posting a message to a
friend online. She started to think about her social media friends. How many
did she have? She counted a grand total of 626 online friends. These friends
came from many areas of her life—her family, her home in Maine, and her
professional life. Some were “friends of friends,” that is, people she’s never met
face-to-face. They were from all over the United States, and more than half
were from other countries. She decided that she was going visit each one of
these 626 online friends. She wanted to meet them in person and photograph
them. It was quite a project!
Of course, it took a lot of planning, but she succeeded in meeting and taking
pictures of almost all of these friends. It took her six years. She traveled by
plane, train, car, and ship to 4 continents, 12 different countries, 34 states, and
400 different homes.
Everywhere Hollander went, she was amazed at how kind and welcoming
people were. She visited a photographer who worked at the White House in
Washington, DC, and she gave Hollander a tour of the president’s home. In
© Copyright Oxford University Press Page 26 of 61
Q3e Listening & Speaking 2: Audio Script
Paris, France, she stayed with an old friend from college who is now a poet and
a hip-hop artist. She says that in her travels, she learned to trust people more
and to say “Yes” to many different experiences. It made her think a lot about the
meaning of friendship. She asks, “What are real-life friends and what do we
mean to each other?” Tanja Hollander has created exhibits of her photos in
museums . . . and, of course, online.
Unit 4, Listening 2, Activities
B and D Page 77, 78
Who Are You Talking To?
GPS: Turn left . . . Turn left . . . Turn left.
Leo: OK! OK! I hear you. Can’t you see that the light is red?
Aran: Uh, Leo, who are you talking to?
Leo: It’s the stupid GPS. Can’t it see that the light is red?
Aran: You do know that it isn’t a real person, right? It can’t see the light.
Leo: Yeah, I know. But it’s so frustrating to hear the same direction over and
over again.
Aran: I know what you mean. But I’m beginning to think that all these artificial
voices are a little scary.
Leo: Do you mean because people like me are beginning to interact with them as if
they were real humans?
Aran: That’s right. It’s almost as if the machines are becoming our friends.
Leo: Oh, come on, it’s not that bad.
Aran: Well, I don’t know. Someone did a study in which they asked people who felt
lonely to interact with a digital voice like the ones on their phones. You know,
these computer programs that always seem to have a female voice? And you
can ask “her” a question and she’ll answer it.
Leo: Yeah, I’ve heard them called AIs, short for artificial intelligence, right?
Aran: Exactly. And the study found that after people interacted with an AI, they felt
less lonely.
Leo: Wow! They felt less lonely after interacting with a digital voice! That is a bit
strange. Or is it? I was just talking to the GPS as if it were a real person!
Aran: You should listen to kids use these things. We have one. My daughter calls
it “Susie.” Sometimes she starts asking “Susie” silly questions, just to hear
the
© Copyright Oxford University Press Page 27 of 61
Q3e Listening & Speaking 2: Audio Script
answers. Then she laughs and laughs, and it sounds like she’s talking to
one of her friends.
Leo: Hmmm. Some friends of mine had a strange experience the other day.
They have one of these voice-activated devices that does things for you
in your house. You can say things like “Close the garage door” or “Turn
off the lights” and it does it. It’ll answer questions, too. So, the other day
they were sitting outside on their patio, and they heard a voice in the
kitchen. They went in and found this “thing” talking to itself!
Aran: What did they do?
Leo: They disconnected it.
Aran: Disconnected it?
Leo: Yes, completely. They say it was just too weird and a bit scary to find a
machine
talking to itself like that, and they’ll never use it again.
Aran: Okay, that’s actually kind of funny. Hmmm. In a way, it’s nice to have all of
these “smart” devices that can do things for us, but I think we need to be
careful about how we use them.
Leo: Be careful? What do you mean?
Aran: What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t become too dependent on these
things.
They’re becoming really common. If people are using AIs to do things as
simple as turn the lights on and off, they might forget how do things for
themselves.
Leo: I guess I see it differently. There have always been new inventions that
change the way people live and even think. For example, I’ve read that
when the telephone was first invented, people also worried about their
privacy. Early phones used what they called “party lines.” Anyone on the
line could pick up the phone and listen to what others were saying! Just
imagine the problems this caused! Of course, people still worry . . . Oops!
We’ve been talking and I forgot where the next turn is.
GPS: In 100 meters, turn right.
Aran: See, this is what I’m saying. Without the GPS, you wouldn’t know where to
turn!