Lesson: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Conversation
Answer the following questions. You might be asked to write them down or answer them out-loud.
Vocabulary
Look at the vocabulary below. Take time to explore the links for their definitions in English and their translations to Portuguese. When you are done, make a sentence with each word. Ask your teacher if you should write them down or say them out loud.
Video
Watch the following video but DON'T read the transcript yet.
After watching the video do this listening exercise.
Reading practice
Read the following transcript then do the associated reading comprehension exercise.
Narrator: So you're reading an article online when you get an instant message with a link to a funny photo, which of course you have to share. And now you are reading your Facebook News Wall, which sends you to a video of a panda bear attacking a kid. And now you are reading Wikipedia to learn everything you can about the violent behavior of panda bears. And this is what 3 minutes on the Internet can be like.
We live like this all the time and it has to have some kind of effect on us.
Nicholas: The net is making us more superficial as thinkers.
Narrator: That is Nicholas Carr. He is the author of, "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains."
To understand this whole thing better we need to go way back in time, to say, like, the prehistoric age. Nicholas: You wanted to know everything going on around you because the more you knew about your surroundings the less likely you were to get attacked by a predator. And there's even evidence that our brains release some dopamine - a pleasure producing neurotransmitter chemical - to reward us for seeking out and finding new information.
Narrator: So, getting distracted felt good and helped us stay alive, but the problem is that nowadays predators aren't much of an issue, but we still have the same brains. And also, there's the Internet, which is...
Nicholas: It's an incredibly information rich environment, uh, that the net creates for us, and that's why we use it so much. I mean, sounds, pictures, words, text and what this tends to do is promote a sort of compulsive behavior in which we are constantly checking our smart phone, constantly glancing at our e-mail inbox: we're kind of living in this perpetual state of distraction and interruption, which is dangerous, because,
Writing practice
Write a couple of paragraphs ---->>>> instructions <<<<-----. Make sure to use words you learned from the text and try to make it as long as you can.
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