NEWS LESSONS / Life through a lens / Elementary
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Fill the gaps in the sentences using these key words from the text.
percentage
research
sedentary
survey multitask
soap
average
childhood
decrease
own
1. A ____________ is a set of questions that you ask a large number of people.
2. ____________ is the time of a person’s life when they are a child.
3. ____________ is when you study something in detail to discover new facts.
4. If you ____________, you do more than one thing at the same time.
5. ____________ is the opposite of increase.
6. If you do a ____________ activity, you sit down a lot and don’t do much exercise.
7. If you ____________ something, it is yours, usually because you have bought it.
8. A ____________is a television series about the lives of a group of people.
9. A ____________ is an amount that is equal to part of a total you have divided by 100.
10. An ____________ is a usual level or standard.
Life through a lens
Level 1
Elementary
Key words
1
Find the information
2
Look in the text and find this information as quickly as possible.
1. How many children have a TV set in their bedroom?
2. What percentage of British children watch TV in bed at night?
3. How many children read books in their own time each day?
4. How many children did the survey interview?
5. What percentage of children watch TV during their evening meal?
6. What percentage of children use the Internet?
NEWS LESSONS / Life through a lens / Elementary
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Life through a lens: How Britain’s
children eat, sleep and breathe TV
Lucy Ward, social affairs correspondent
January 16, 2008
A survey has shown that in modern-day Britain
many children spend a lot of their daily lives
watching television. They watch TV before they
go to school, when they return home, as they
eat their evening meal and then (63% of them
– a much higher percentage than read a book
each day) in bed at night. The survey of five to
16-year-olds shows that four out of every five
children now have a TV set in their bedroom.
Many children now do other things while they
watch television, including social networking
on the Internet, looking from their laptop to the
TV screen and back again. Even if they are
concentrating on the television, young people
often do not watch just one programme. Boys
in particular often switch from one channel
to another and back again to watch two
programmes at the same time. The survey, from
the market research agency Childwise, will make
many people worried that childhood is now more
about private space and sedentary activities than
about play, social interaction or the child’s
own imagination.
The survey also shows that children are watching
more television than before. The amount of
television-watching decreased over the last three
years but is now increasing again. This is mainly
the result of more girls watching soaps.
Children’s use of the Internet is also increasing
rapidly. This means British children spend an
average of five hours and 20 minutes in front of a
screen every day, compared with four hours and
40 minutes five years ago. But children do not
read for pleasure as much as they did in the past.
Four out of five children read books in their own
time but only one out of four read books every
day and only 53% at least once a week.
The survey interviewed 1,147 children in 60
schools around England, Scotland and Wales. It
found that children aged 5 to 16 watch television
for an average 2.6 hours a day, and one in 10
say they watch more than four hours a day. The
survey also asked if children watched television
while eating dinner or in bed before going to
sleep. It found that 58% watch during their
evening meal, while 63% lie in bed watching
TV (rising to almost 75% of 13 to 16-year-olds).
66% – particularly the youngest children – watch
before school, and 83% turn on the television
after returning home.
Rosemary Duff, the research director of
Childwise, said television was now “a part of
children’s lives”. She said that children watch
it in a different way now. “In the past they paid
a lot of attention when they watched television
but now it is everywhere, at home and
everywhere you go.”
“Children now multitask. They have one eye
on the television while they read magazines or
use the computer,” Duff said. When Childwise
asked boys to choose between programmes
on different channels they often didn’t want to
choose and said they wanted to ‘watch both’.
“They switch from one programme to another
and cannot imagine that they need to make a
decision. They are surprised when you ask them
to make a choice.”
Computers are also now a key part of children’s
private worlds. “The Internet is now an important
part of most young people’s lives,” says the
study. 85% of five to 16-year-olds use the
Internet, and over a third (including a quarter of
five to six-year-olds) own a computer or laptop.
On average, they go online just over four times a
week and spend two hours online each time.
The survey shows that children are using the
Internet more and more, especially younger
children. This is mainly because of social
networking sites like Bebo. The main reason
children use the Internet is communication
(social networking), then fun (online games) and
finally studying. Almost three quarters (72%) of
children have visited a social networking site,
and over half have their own profile. Sometimes
Life through a lens
Level 1
Elementary
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they lie about their age if there are minimum age
requirements to join a social networking site.
Children as young as eight are now joining sites
like these.
Kathy Evans, policy director of the Children’s
Society, which is studying modern childhood,
said that people are worried about the possible
results of children’s TV and Internet viewing
habits. The Children’s Society will publish a
report next month on children and technology.
© Guardian News & Media 2008
First published in The Guardian, 16/01/08
Life through a lens
Level 1
Elementary
Comprehension Check
3
Match the beginnings and the endings to make sentences about the text.
1. The survey shows that…
2. The amount of television watching is increasing again…
3. The main reason children use the Internet...
4. Two thirds of children…
5. Over a third of children…
6. 83% of children…
a. … because more girls are watching soaps.
b. … turn on the television when they get home from school.
c. … own a laptop.
d. … children are spending more and more time watching TV and using the Internet.
e. … watch TV before they go to school.
f. … is social networking.
10
NEWS LESSONS / Life through a lens / Elementary
•PHOT
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Life through a lens
Level 1
Elementary
Percentages
4
Chunks
5
Rearrange the words to make phrases from the text.
1. school they before to go
2. least week at once a
3. going sleep to before
4. hours more a than day four
5. returning after home
6. channel switch to one from another
Match the phrases from the text with the percentages.
1. Four out of five children
a. 25%
2. One out of four children
b. 63%
3. One in ten children
c. 25%
4. Three quarters of children
d. 10%
5. A quarter of five to six-year olds
e. 75%
6. Nearly two thirds of children
f. 80%
Word stress
6
Put these words from the text into group A or group B according to their stress.
average
amount
private
children
return
result
survey (n)
between
programme
childhood
because
report
A 0 o
B o 0
