We’re so entangled with our devices that online has started to feel more real than IRL, says journalist Nayeema Raza. As screens reshape how we connect and relate, she offers three practical habits to reignite curiosity, restore presence and break free from our phones.
Watch the beginning of the video (00:00-02:49) and complete the gaps with the missing words/phrases:
I ask questions for a living to people like Mark Cuban, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Esther Perel, Bill Nye. These masters of their 1. ……… And the most surprising answer I heard this year was from two 11-year-olds named Sophie and Dilan. They too are experts in being kids these days. So I asked them, how does time with people on screens feel different than real life? (…)
Sophie’s pointing out a 2. ………. paradox. When we are together physically, we are each alone on our phones. But when we’re in our phones, that’s when we can be together. The best way to not be distracted by your device? Just get inside of it. Now these 11-year-olds are not talking about some distant, 3. ……….. generation. They’re talking about each of us. They’re definitely talking about me and about a world that’s increasingly driven by machines. So I 4. ………….. an extreme metaphor for what this could look like. And it’s this guy who’s locked in a Waymo, and it’s driving him in circles. So he calls customer service and finds out he’s not the only one trapped.(…)
It is sexy to think that the tech apocalypse is Arnold Schwarzenegger and “The Terminator,” but it could be so much more 5. ……….. than that. Just us driven in circles, 6. …… ….…… by drop-down menus, with gadgets, disintermediating us from each other,
from our own bodies and from our curiosities. Because nowadays, when we have a question, we don’t wait and phone a friend. We 7. ……… our phones. And that feels so empowering to have all of this knowledge at our 8. ………. . Yet early research from MIT tells us it’s making us lazier and less smart, and it is definitely making us less connected. This is not what our parents and grandparents were sold when they saw this relic of an ad from AT&T which says, “Reach out and touch someone.” And yes, for all kinds of reasons, it would not 9. ……. .….. well today. But it is 10. ……….. prescient because we have never been more connected and more out of touch. (…)
Key: 1. field; 2. profound; 3. anxious; 4. stumbled upon; 5. mundane; 6. held hostage; 7. friend; 8. fingertips; 9. go down; 10. oddly
Glossary
- entangled – twisted or caught together in a complicated way
- to reignite – to start something again after it has weakened or stopped, especially emotions, interest, debate, or conflict
- to disintermediate – to remove the middleman so two parties deal directly with each other
- to play footsie – to flirt by touching someone’s foot with your own under a table
Practice makes perfect
Read the article and decide if the statements below are true or false:
1. AI companion apps are becoming a large industry.
2. Using AI every day automatically means you are dependent on it.
3. Feeling grief when an AI changes may signal emotional attachment.
4. Researchers recommend replacing therapy with AI chatbots.
5. Human interaction helps rebuild important psychological processes.
6. Emotional dependency on AI can resemble patterns seen in unhealthy human relationships.
7. The article suggests that people should completely stop using AI companions.
8. One recommended strategy is to take regular breaks from AI companion apps.
Key: 1T; 2F; 3T; 4F; 5T; 6T; 7F; 8T
Discuss
- What paradox about phones and social interaction does the speaker describe?
- What three “old habits” does the speaker suggest we should practice again?
- Why does she call smartphones a “digital pacifier”?
- Why does the speaker believe curiosity is harmed by constant access to information?
- How does the story about her father reinforce the message of the talk?
- Do you agree with Sophie that people sometimes feel more connected online than in person?
- Have you ever noticed people using phones during social situations (dinner, meetings, parties)? How did it affect the conversation?
- Do you think younger generations experience friendship differently because of technology?
- Can AI ever replace real relationships?
- Are AI companions helpful for lonely people?
Watch and Revise!
3 Habits to Boost Curiosity and Escape Your Phone
https://www.cloud.worldwideschool.pl/index.php/s/5E4qYTwoeHQSPHi
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