Assignment C - Part 2.i
Authentic Text
Check the Class Description and Notes on Part 2 on the assignment platform before you begin.
The text should be 500 - 700 words long. (4-5 minutes for listening texts).
In this document, provide a copy of the reading text or a transcript of the listening text you
have chosen.
Ensure the text is referenced, and if you have selected a listening text or video, provide a link.
If you choose a reading text, you can shorten and/or adapt it slightly.
Please supply a copy of the original and your adapted version.
If you have adapted the text, briefly explain the decisions you've made about changing the text
in section b) of the essay.
Highlight 12 vocabulary items (words or phrases) which would be useful to pre-teach.
Is social media bad for you? The evidence and the unknowns. (BBC article)
STRESS
People use social media to vent about everything from customer service to politics, but the
downside to this is that our feeds often resemble an endless stream of stress. In 2015, re-
searchers at the Pew Research Center based in Washington DC sought to find out if social
media induces more stress than it relieves. In the survey of 1,800 people, women reported
being more stressed than men. Twitter was found to be a “significant contributor” because
it increased their awareness of other people’s stress. But Twitter also acted as a coping
mechanism – and the more women used it, the less stressed they were. The same effect
wasn’t found for men, whom the researchers said had a more distant relationship with so-
cial media. Overall, the researchers concluded that social media use was linked to “mod-
estly lower levels” of stress.
MOOD
In 2014, researchers in Austria found that participants reported lower moods after using
Facebook for 20 minutes compared to those who just browsed the internet. The study sug-
gested that people felt that way because they saw it as a waste of time. A good or bad
mood may also spread between people on social media, according to researchers from
the University of California, who assessed the emotional content of over a billion status up-
dates from more than 100 million Facebook users between 2009 and 2012. Bad weather
increased the number of negative posts by 1%, and the researchers found that one negat-
ive post by someone in a rainy city influenced another 1.3 negative posts by friends living
in dry cities. The better news is that happy posts had a stronger influence; each one in-
spired 1.75 more happy posts. Whether a happy post translates to a genuine boost in
mood, however, remains unclear.
ANXIETY
© 2020 The TEFL Academy. All rights reserved. 1
Authentic Text
Check the Class Description and Notes on Part 2 on the assignment platform before you begin.
The text should be 500 - 700 words long. (4-5 minutes for listening texts).
In this document, provide a copy of the reading text or a transcript of the listening text you
have chosen.
Ensure the text is referenced, and if you have selected a listening text or video, provide a link.
If you choose a reading text, you can shorten and/or adapt it slightly.
Please supply a copy of the original and your adapted version.
If you have adapted the text, briefly explain the decisions you've made about changing the text
in section b) of the essay.
Highlight 12 vocabulary items (words or phrases) which would be useful to pre-teach.
Is social media bad for you? The evidence and the unknowns. (BBC article)
STRESS
People use social media to vent about everything from customer service to politics, but the
downside to this is that our feeds often resemble an endless stream of stress. In 2015, re-
searchers at the Pew Research Center based in Washington DC sought to find out if social
media induces more stress than it relieves. In the survey of 1,800 people, women reported
being more stressed than men. Twitter was found to be a “significant contributor” because
it increased their awareness of other people’s stress. But Twitter also acted as a coping
mechanism – and the more women used it, the less stressed they were. The same effect
wasn’t found for men, whom the researchers said had a more distant relationship with so-
cial media. Overall, the researchers concluded that social media use was linked to “mod-
estly lower levels” of stress.
MOOD
In 2014, researchers in Austria found that participants reported lower moods after using
Facebook for 20 minutes compared to those who just browsed the internet. The study sug-
gested that people felt that way because they saw it as a waste of time. A good or bad
mood may also spread between people on social media, according to researchers from
the University of California, who assessed the emotional content of over a billion status up-
dates from more than 100 million Facebook users between 2009 and 2012. Bad weather
increased the number of negative posts by 1%, and the researchers found that one negat-
ive post by someone in a rainy city influenced another 1.3 negative posts by friends living
in dry cities. The better news is that happy posts had a stronger influence; each one in-
spired 1.75 more happy posts. Whether a happy post translates to a genuine boost in
mood, however, remains unclear.
ANXIETY
© 2020 The TEFL Academy. All rights reserved. 1
