Academic-English-Well-connected.docx

Well connectedText Well connected? The biological implications of social networking, Text 4b (Reading texts pp. 156-160)Text 4b is an article from The Biologist on the effect of social networking on face-to-face contact. You will use the text to carry out further selective summarising practice. Most of your note-taking will be from memory.丁卜is is to encourage you to make brief notes in your own words. This should help you develop a better understanding of the key points of the text, as well as encouraging you to write the summary in your own words and avoid plagiarising sections of the text. After making the notes, you will again be given an opportunity to check the text and revise the notes.Task 5 Considering the title and abstract5.1 Analyse the title of Text 4b. Discuss questions 1-3 with other students.1 .What do you understand by the term social networking?2. How are you involved with social networking, if at all?3 .Does your idea of networking correspond with the following dictionary definition?5.2 Analyse the opening summary for Text 4b.Why do you think some phrases in the text have been highlighted?One of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction In the number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being. Recent history has seen people in marked retreat from one another as Britain moves from a culture of greater common experience to a society of more isolated experience. She Is in good company, as Americans too step back from one another in unprecedented magnitude.5.3 Analyse phrases from the: opening summary.a Discuss the meaning of each phrase with another student, or work alone.b Complete the table below by explaining, in your own wards, the meaning of each phrase.c Answer the questions below.1. What does they refer to in the second line?2. What does She refer to in the final sentence?Task 6 Reading and making notes6.1 Read Section 1 of the text without stopping.a. Without looking back at the text, list the examples of how or why people in Britain and America are stepping back from one another in unprecedented magnitude.b. Compare your list with that of another student.6.2 Look at Figure 1 and discuss the questions below.a. What very obvious trend do you notice?b. In which year did the difference between social interaction and electronic media use completely reverse?Study tip: Graphs, tables and charts can summarise key information in a very economical way, Remember to look at them carefully.6.3 Read Section Eye and ear conlact, without stopping and then steps a-c without looking back at the text.a. Write down what you think the subheading Eye and ear contact refer to.B. Write notes based on what you recall from the text.c. Check the text; decide if there arc any extra points you should record in your notes.Task 7 Making notes and drawing conclusions7.1 Read Section 3, Morbidity.When you have fioislled reading, write clown in no more than two sentences why experts emphasise the importance of maintaining (or regaining) a culture of greater common experience.7.2 Read Section 4, Marriage and cohabitation. When you finish this section complete steps a-c.a. Make notes from memory, as in earlier tasks.b. With other students, discuss what main point is being made in this section.c. Write a summary of the main point in one sentence.7.3 Read Section 5, Conclusion, without stopping.a. Make a note of the key points from memory.b. On completing your notes, decide whether you personally are concerned about any of the issues discussed in the text.c. With other students, discuss any concerns you have.Task 8 Writing a summary8.1 Re-read the opening Summary at the beginning of Text 4b. What do you now understand by the question Well connected? in the title?8.2 Write a test of no more than 150 words summarising the biological implications of social networking.When you have finished, you will be able to compare your summary with an example supplied by your teacher.Note: Your teachel may now decide to spend more time looking at the text in order to focus on some of the vocabulary, text structure and academic st5rle that may be useful for you to study.Key reading skills:Writing a summary of the textSummarising a text involves answering the question: Whatkeyideas does the writer want to communicate? A summary does not have to be long and should not include too much detail.Text 4b well connected? The biological implications of ”social networkingOne of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction in tfe number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being. Recent history has seen people in marked retreat from one another as Britain moves from a culture of greater common experience to a society of more isolated experience. She is in good company, as Americans too step back from one another in unprecedented magnitude.Aric SigmanSocial scientists reportde in 2006 that fewer than two decades the number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled”.The number of both kin and non-kin confidants is described as dramlatically smaller”(McPherson，Smith-Loven, Brashears, 2006). A 2003 report by the UKs Office for National Statistics (Ruston, 2003)found that Britons now spent approximately 50 minutes a day interacting socially with other people. Couples now spend less time in one anothers company and more time at work, commuting, or in the same house but in separate rooms using different electronic media devices. Parents spend less time with their children than they did only a decade ago. Britain has the lowest proportion of chil山en in all of Europe who eat with their parents at the taLle. The proportion of people who work on their own at home continues to rise. The report went on to say that in the 20 years to 2003, the proportion of people living alone doubled:- a trend highly pronounced in the 25- 44 age group. For the first time in our history a third of the adults in this country live alone, a trend that looks set to continue. Figure 1. The amount of face-to-face social interaction declines as use of electronic media increases. These trends are predicted to increase (data abstracted from a series of time-use and demographic studies).Britains disinclination for togetherness is only ecjua1led by her veneration of communicating through new technologies. The rapid proliferation of electronic media is now making private space available in almost every sphere of the individuals.life. Yet this is now the most significcant Contributing factor to societys growing physical estrangement (see Figure 1). Wnether in or out of the home, more people of all ages in tile UK are physically and socially disengaged from the people around them because they are wearing earphones, talking or texting on a mobile telephone, or using a laptop or Blackberry. US Senator Carl Kruger described how people walking around tuned in were, in the process of being tuned in, being tuned out to the world around them. The malady is referred to as iPod oblivion.Eye and ear contactC1lildren now spend more time in the family alone in front of TV/computer screens than doing anything else (Sibman, 2007). A 2008 study (Childwise, 2008) reports that25% of Gritish five-year-olds oen computer or laptop of their own. In particular, the study noted an enormouts increase in social networrking among younger children which had overtaken fun (online games) as the main reason to use the Internet. Time that was previously spent interacting socially has increasingly been displaced by the virtual variety. A 2008 editorial in the .l ourna o f the Roycel Socie。)o f Medicine (Abbasi，2008) made the timely point that social networking”encourages us to ignore the social networks that form in our non-virtual communities”,and argued that”the time we spend socialising electronically separates us from our physical networks”. But why precisely should physicians be concerned about these changes in peoples actual contact and interaction with one another? One reason is that social connection is increasingly associated with physiological changes known to influnce both morbidity (the incidence of disease in the population) and mortality (the death rate).MorbidityAccording to the Oxford English Dictionary morbidity refers to”the rate of disease, or a specific disease，in a population”. Several decades of research have found that greater social contact is related to reduced morbidity while fewe:contacts lead to increased morbidity. This relationship is valid independent of the individuals earlier health status.Rutledge et al. (2008) reported that women with fewer social relationships experienced strokes at more than twice the rate of those with more social relationships after adjusting for other possible medical reasons for strokes,A further study on strokes, involving experiments on male and female mice，reported that social interaction reduced concentrations of a protein linkeu with strokes, and decreased theamount of damage to body tissue caused by the inflow of blood during a stroke.Loneliness is found to be a unique predictor of age-related differences in blood pressure when the heart is pumping blood. And blood pressure for married adults-especially those happily married-declines more during sleep than for single people who may therefore be at much greater risk of problems with the heart and blood vessels，In one experiment, in which men were challenged in order to increase their blood pressure，it was found that blood pressure returned to baseline levels more quickly in the men with more close friends.The incidence of senile dementia (Alzheimers disease)-serious mental disorder in older people-is expected to double within a generation，and research conducted by Harvard Universitys School of Public Health(Ertel et al., 2008) examined the influence of social integration, including frequency of social interaction, on changes in memory in 16,63 8 subjects aged 50 and older. The study concluded that the rate of memory loss among the least-integrated was twice the rate of loss among the most-integrated. Others report that the frequency of social interaction is inversely related to the incidence of dementia and may protect against dementia.A positive relationship between the sheer amount of regular actual social contact and cognitive functioning has,however, been found in a variety of age groups including younger adults. Most interesting is the study byYbarra et al. (2008) in which participants who interacted socially for. only 10 minutes Showed improved cognitive performance, performance equivalent to that displayed by partcipants engaged in so-called intellectual activities, The authors believe the results show not only that the effect is causal but also that the process is very sensitive to only small amounts of social interaction. They conclude: Social interaction directly affects memory and mental performance in a positive way.”Marriage and cohabitationRuston(2003)reports that the long-recognised protective effect of marriage against suicide has persisted over the past 25 years，despite changes in marriage patterns. Between 1983 and 2004，suicide rates for single people were around three times higher than for married people. For single women，the differential compared with married women widened from just over two times to three times.Unfortunately, our marriage rate is at an all-time low.Statistics indicate that the protective effects conferred by marriage are cumulative, as are the harmful effects of years being divorced (Lund et al., 2006).Conclusionwhile the precise mechanisms underlying the association between social connection, morbidity and mortality continue to be investigated，it is clear that this is a growing public health issue for all industrialised countries.Kraut et a,(1998),a detailed classic study of 73 families who used the Internet for communication (the”Internet paradox study)，concluded that greater use of the Internet was associated with declines in communication between family members In the household，declines in the size of their social circle, and increases in their levels of depression and lon