The Social Dilemma Answer Key

ESL Level: Upper-intermediate (Advanced here)
Lesson Topic: The health and societal issues caused by social media utilize
Skill Focus: Speaking, Reading, Vocabulary
Lesson Plan Download: social-media-dilemma-upper-intermediate-01104020.docx
Approximate Class Fourth dimension: three.5 hours

Notes:

Teachers, this lesson is longer and denser than usual. Choice the activities that you feel volition work for your class. This lesson summarizes the primal ideas of The Social Dilemma (Netflix, 2020). If possible, watching the documentary itself would be a dandy pre- or post-action.
Students, experience free to read the lesson, do the vocabulary exercises, and exit your answers to the questions in the comment area below.

UPPER-INTERMEDIATE Social Media ESL Lesson Plan: Warm-upward (Pair Work)

Which websites do you use the about? What practice you lot like most nigh them?
What social networking platforms exercise yous use? Why do you utilise them?
Do you make an effort to limit your screen time? Why or why non?
What social movements do yous know that have become pop considering of social media?

Reading: The Social Dilemma Documentary

The Social Dilemma is a video documentary that argues that social media companies are causing significant impairment to social club. The video is more often than not presented past insiders in the tech industry (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) who confess to the harmful nature of the engineering they helped design.

"If you're not paying for the product, then y'all're the product."

The film clarifies that social media are not free platforms without a production. By using the organization, the user and his attention go the production that advertisers aim to command. Although we fright these companies sell our data, social media companies hoard it in order to monetize us. The data collected is not only demographic–every click is measured by algorithms to better understand our behaviour. The end goal is manipulation, which is described equally a "gradual, slight, imperceptible alter in [our] own behaviour and perception." According to Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff, this has made tech companies "the richest companies in the history of humanity."

The Mental Health Dilemma

Justin Rosenstein, creator of the Facebook Like push button, believed his characteristic would spread positivity. Such features provide us with social blessing, which nosotros tend to misfile with acceptance and truth. Sadly, the result is but a temporary joy that leaves us empty and depressed without it.

A study of 100,000 teenage girls in the U.Due south. institute that hospital admissions for self-harm take increased by 62% in older teens and 189% in pre-teens (nearly triple). The aforementioned patterns exist for teen suicide. Social media became available on smartphones in 2009, and these changes began around 2010/2011.

The Republic Dilemma

"If you desire to control the population of your country, there has never been a tool every bit constructive as Facebook."

Social media is perhaps besides efficient at reaching the most receptive audiences for ads and campaigns. This allows bad actors such as political and hate groups to hands gain popularity and influence. Studies from MIT (2018) prove that fake news spreads 6 times faster than true news. This leads to a polarization of society as newsfeeds make u.s. more than extreme in our views. We also filter out ideas that don't align with our worldview. As a gild, we lose touch with the shared facts and reality that bail u.s.a..

The documentary uses the Flat World movement to show how regular people tin be influenced to prefer incredibly idiotic beliefs. The movement was popularized by a Youtube algorithm that recommended the video to hundreds of millions of people.

What do the film's experts believe will happen in the hereafter to guild? Their earnest answers include ceremonious war and the end of civilization due to our own willful ignorance.

Social Media Lesson Program: Comprehension Questions

True or Simulated: The commodity claims that social media companies are selling our data.
In your ain words, what is the `mental health' dilemma?
What can we infer near the author's view on the cause of teenage wellness problems?
Draw the "democracy dilemma" presented in the commodity in your own words.
Does the writer imply that Apartment Earthers are in fact stupid?
Which claims in the article do you lot concur with? Which do you disagree with?
Practice you agree with the commodity's thoughts on the future of society?

Possible Answers

1- Faux. He claims that companies are keeping the information for their own use.

3- Past stating the correlation betwixt the ascent of health bug and the availability of social media on mobile phones, we can infer that the author believes social media has a causal role in creating these problems.

5-No. He suggests that they are regular people, only they have been manipulated by recommended content.

Vocabulary: Friction match the words from the commodity with their pregnant.

one. insider (n)
2. hoard (5)
3. demographic (adj)
iv. manipulation (n)
v. imperceptible (adj)
6. receptive (adj)
vii. polarization (northward)
8. extreme (adj)
ix. align (v)
10. earnest (adj)
11. willful (adj)

Answers

Answers
1-a person with…
two-collect and hide abroad…
three-related to statistical…
iv-the action of…
5-impossible to see…
6-willing to accept…
7-division in two…
eight-supporting drastic ideas….
9-agree with
ten-sincere
eleven-intentional, on purpose…

Vocabulary Homework: Circle the words that were new to y'all. Add them to your vocabulary notebook and make sentences for homework.

Social Media Lesson Plan: Lodge for a Improve Tomorrow (Group Work)

Background: You and your partners are scheduled to give a brusque presentation (5-8 minutes) on how to amend manage social media use. In the audition volition be members of government, concerned parents, and teenagers.

Task: Brainstorm ideas near how to address the issues presented by social media. Exist certain to consider the three groups in your audience. When finished, organize your ideas so present them to the grade.

Social Media Lesson Plan: Contend

Student A: Yous believe that overall social media is good for order. Spend a few minutes thinking of ideas to support your position. When finished, offset the debate.

Educatee B: You believe that overall social media is bad for gild. Spend a few minutes thinking of ideas to support your position. Your partner will start the debate when gear up.

Social Media Lesson Plan: "The Gift" Office-Play

Groundwork: Educatee A is the teenage child of Student B. Pick a function and then read only your ain office.

Pupil A: You are a teenager. You employ social media for several important functions in your life. Your parent has asked to speak with you because due south/he wants to give you a souvenir.

Educatee B: You worry that your teenager is addicted to applied science. Yous have recently bought a souvenir that you will believe will greatly benefit his/her life: The Cell-Phone Jail. This product is a small cell in which you can lock a phone for a set up corporeality of fourth dimension. Present your gift to your teen and try to make rules near how you will use the cell-phone jail.

Social Media Lesson Plan: The Social Dilemma Recommendations

Discuss these recommendations presented by tech experts at the end of the documentary. Are they similar to your recommendations from your presentation? Which could you adopt?

Recognizing the current problems and discussing them openly
Uninstalling apps that waste product time
Turning off notifications
Using a search engine that doesn't shop search history instead of Google
Putting more regulations on tech companies and taxing data assets to discourage companies from mining personal data
Fact-checking the sources of an commodity before you share it
Making an effort to read news from different points of view
Not allowing children to use social media until 16 years of historic period
Working out a time-budget with children almost how many hours they tin can spend online

Social Media Lesson Program: Social Media Confessions Bingo

(Instructions and card taken from https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/start-a-conversation/)

1 Way to Play

Circle your confessions, leaving the eye blank
Testify your card to the group, and select one feel to share with the group
As a group, discuss how you might reduce the negative effects of social media
The winner is the person who makes a positive change in their life -or- the person who circles the fewest squares

Social Media ESL Lesson Plan: Bonus Discussion Questions

Discuss this quotation: "Just drug dealers and software companies call their customers `users'" — Edward Tufte
Is unconscious manipulation of the consumer whatever unlike from regular marketing and advertising?
Does your country have a problem with `fake news'? Have you experienced simulated news yourself?
Practise you lot feel the social club you live in has become more and more polarized?

To take action to solve the social dilemma, watch the film then visit https://world wide web.thesocialdilemma.com/take-activeness/

Social Media Lesson program created Matthew Barton of Englishcurrent.com