Материал: 1989
22.Explain the difference between the words “habit” and “addiction”. Give your examples of addictions in addition to those mentioned in the text.
23.Look at the survey report below. Then discuss with your partner the following questions:
1)How has technology influenced our leisure time?
2)Have we become “couch potatoes”?
3)Has technology brought people closer?
Asked questions |
Yes |
No |
|
|
|
Is modern technology turning us into “couch potatoes”? |
45 % |
55 % |
|
|
|
Do you use the Internet every day? |
56 % |
44 % |
|
|
|
Do you watch more than one hour of TV every day? |
67 % |
33 % |
|
|
|
Do you spend less than an hour a day with your family? |
71 % |
29 % |
|
|
|
Do you use the Internet to keep in touch with your |
53 % |
47 % |
friends and relatives? |
|
|
|
|
|
24. Read the passages below to find out what each of the following is necessary for:
BLOGS (WEB LOGS)
Blogging has become a huge form of media, popular through the Internet. A blog is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. Many
blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.
A podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.
RSS FEEDS
RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal blogs. It is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines, and podcasts. An RSS document (which is called a “feed”
or “web feed” or “channel”) contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs or filtered displays.
MOBILE PHONE
Mobile phones were introduced in Japan in 1997 and the first downloadable ringing tones were introduced in Finland in 1998. Soon most forms of media content were introduced on mobile phones, and today the total value of media consumed on mobile towers over that of Internet content, and was worth over 31 billion dollars in 2007 (source Informa). In Japan mobile phone books are so popular that five of the ten best-selling printed books were originally released as mobile phone books. The mobile
media content includes over 8 billion dollars worth of mobile music (ringing tones, ringback tones, truetones, MP3 files, karaoke, music videos, music streaming services etc); over 5 billion dollars worth of mobile gaming; and various news, entertainment and advertising services. The most common platform for mobile games is Java ME aimed at developing software for small and resource-constrained devices.
Similar to the Internet, mobile is also an interactive media, but has far wider reach, with 3.3 billion mobile phone users at the end of 2007 to 1.3 billion Internet users (source ITU). Like e-mail on the Internet, the top application on mobile is also a personal messaging service, but SMS text
messaging is used by over 2.4 billion people. Practically all Internet services and applications exist or have similar cousins on mobile, from search to multiplayer games, to virtual worlds, to blogs. Mobile has the best audience accuracy and is the only mass media with a built-in payment channel available to every user without any credit cards or paypal accounts or even an age limit. Mobile is often called the 7th Mass Medium and either the fourth screen (if counting cinema, TV and PC screens) or the third screen (counting only TV and PC).
25.Say which kind of different digital-media formats you would use to do each of these tasks:
1)e-mail
2)podcast
3)RSS feeds
4)blog
5)mobile phone
a)to read commentary or news on a particular subject
b)to send and receive messages
c)to get various news, entertainment and advertising
d)to syndicate news and the content of news-like sites
e)to subscribe to downloading of new content
26.Add words to each of the spidergrams and then make up sentences using the words:
software
CD-Rom
computer
keyboard 
hard disc
signal
direct call
mobile phone
ring tones 
menu
www
online games
Internet
Internet shops 
e-mail
27. Read the brief history of the Web and put in the suitable words in the gaps:
Personal computers |
Small computers which people use at work/ |
|
home |
|
|
A network |
Computers joined together so that they can |
|
communicate |
|
|
The Internet |
A network of millions of computers around the |
|
world |
|
|
Electronic mail |
A way of sending and receiving messages on |
(e-mail) |
the Internet |
|
|
The World Wide Web |
A user-friendly way of looking at words, |
|
pictures and sounds on the Internet. Also called |
|
the Web or the WWW |
|
|
A browser |
Computer software used to look at the Web |
|
|
A site |
A place on the Internet, also called a web page |
|
|
An address |
The location of a site/ web page |
|
|
The … has existed since 1969. It was created by the USA military as a way of communicating even after a nuclear war. Universities
soon used it. At first it was only used to send and receive … messages. Thirty years ago computers were very big and very
expensive. |
Today millions of people use computers at home and |
at work. |
Many people can afford to have a … at home and at |
work, computers are joined over …s. It 1991 the … was invented.
Now people looked at words, saw pictures and even heard sounds |
from |
|
around the world on their PCs. The Web was very popular. |
In |
|
1987 there were 10,000 web pages but by 1992 there were more |
than |
|
one million …s and many millions of web page …s. Thirty |
years ago |
|
a few people used the Internet to send e-mail. Today all |
you need is a |
|
PC and a … like “Explorer” to discover the wonderful |
world of the Web. |
|
28.Dwell upon one of the following topics:
1)Role of the Internet in the modern world.
2)Modern technologies and their influence on our life.
3)Use of the Internet for education.
4)Development of technologies during the last decades.
29.Look at the survey results in the table. Say what the following percentages tell you:
Kind of media |
Number of people who use |
|
|
|
|
|
printed word |
electronic media |
|
|
|
newspapers |
36 % |
64 % |
|
|
|
magazines |
54 % |
46 % |
|
|
|
encyclopaedias |
74 % |
26 % |
|
|
|
dictionaries |
78 % |
22 % |
|
|
|
Make a conclusion if the printed word is dying.
30.Answer the following questions:
1)How do you keep yourself informed (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, Internet, other)?
2)What sources of supplemental information do you use more often (printed encyclopaedias and dictionaries, their CD or DVD versions, Internet sites)?
3)What form of books do you prefer (hardcover, paperback, e-book)?
Give reasons for your choice. Think about cost, convenience, binding.