SOCIAL MEDIA

Read the articles and prepare a presentation IN GREEK about the facts and solutions of media addiction which you think your classmates will find most interesting:

Article 1
Article 2
Article 3


Are you a social media addict? Take the following quiz. 
Check your score with your teacher. 

never (0 pts)     occasionally (5 pts)       often (10 pts)          always (20 pts) 

1 I check Facebook on my phone first thing in the morning when I wake up. 
2 I take a picture of my meal and post it instantly on social media. 
3 I ask my friends to check my photos on social media. 
4 I check my social media accounts several times a day. 
5 I take a break and stay away from social media. 
6 When I hear something I like, I remember to post it as my status on Facebook. 
7 I know the number of my friends and followers on social media. 
8 I feel disappointed when my posts do not get many likes on Facebook. 
9 I spend a long time on social media looking at what my friends have been up to in their lives. 
10 I feel happy when I get lots of friend requests on Facebook.

3. Read the following text. 

The value of social media For digital natives who never knew life before social media, the world seems like it has always been the same but for digital migrants, the present looks nothing like the past. If you were born in the late 1990s onwards, just try to imagine what your life would be like without Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Does it look appealing to you? Probably not. Your social interaction depends so much on social media and keeping up with friends requires you to be online most, if not all, of the time. This is why your parents and friends probably keep urging you to get away from your computer or put your smart phone down and spend more time with them. 

The use of social media has boomed in recent years and statistics show that nowadays, there are almost two billion social network users in the world, most of them teenagers and young adults. This obsession with social media is well reflected in statistics. According to Statista, a website specializing in statistics, 51% of worldwide Facebook users who make new friends at least once a week are between 18 and 33 years of age. However, when it comes to younger users between 13 and 17 years of age, 72% of them make at least one new friend per week. This percentage gains more significance when we learn from Facebook that its monthly active users worldwide as of the second quarter of 2015 reached some 1.5 billion. This number barely reached 750 million monthly active users in the second quarter of 2011. In the same period of 2009, this number was roughly 250 million. As you see, these numbers speak for themselves but the more information we learn about the use of social media, the more interesting it gets. 

In the UK, for instance, the use of social networks is dominated by the 90% of young people between 16 and 24 years old who are on social media and the 75% of those between the ages of 25 and 44 who use Facebook. Add to this the fact that, in 2014, Facebook and YouTube were the top social media sites accessed by 8–15-year-olds in Great Britain. 

What do young users spend their time doing on social media? There are a number of things but the top activities are finding out what friends are doing, sending them messages and knowing what they are watching or listening to. This is for 16–24-year-olds, followed in second place by 25–34-year-olds, who come first in keeping in touch with relatives. 

In the midst of this entire buzz about social media, alarming voices warning of the dangers of such a situation can be heard. Some people argue that young people’s overuse of social media represents an addiction that threatens their real-life communication skills. Moreover, this addiction can distract them from their studies and affect their concentration, especially given the many cases of use of social media during class that have been reported. Meanwhile, overuse of social networks by adults can harm their relationships. Other disadvantages include wasting time, identity theft, cyber bullying and crimes against children. 

Now, where do you stand in all this? Are you a social media addict? Do you think social networking is worth all the importance people give to it?

Answer the following questions about the text. 
a. How do digital natives and digital migrants see the world today? 
b. What does keeping up with friends require nowadays? 
c. Who are the majority of social media users in the world? 
d. 72% of what category of Facebook users make at least one new friend every week? 
e. How many monthly active Facebook users were there in the second quarter of 2009? 
f. Who dominates the use of social networks in the UK? 
g. In what social media activity do adults come before younger users? 
h. What do you think of the criticism levelled at those who overuse social media? 

Find words or expressions from the text with the following meanings. 
a. attractive 
b. staying in touch with 
c. trying persistently to persuade someone to do something 
d. grown or developed rapidly 
e. hardly 
f. approximately 
g. excited interest or talk about something 
h. get someone’s attention and prevent them from concentrating on something

Complete the following sentences with words and expression from above. 
a. Social networking sites are very useful for ___________________ what is happening in the world. 
b. Addiction to such sites can _________________________________ students from their studies. 
c. Nowadays, younger generations _____________________________ know what it means to write, send and receive letters. 
d. There is a real ___________________________ around the topic of social networking sites. 
e. The popularity of hashtags has _____________________________ as they help people find posts and messages about a specific issue on social media. 
f. ____________________________ 70% of Facebook users access the site on their smart phones. 
g. Social media has become very ___________________________ to businesses as it allows them to post advertisements and reach their customers easily. 
h. Many schools and universities are_________________ teachers to use technology in their classes.