Número de cormillos

1. What do you think about:

a. fast-food being sold in schools?

b. cosmetics being advertised in schools?

c. advertisements broadcast during programs for kids?

2. Match the following synonyms from the article:

a. Greedy Impact

b. Bombarding Peddle

c. Tout Induce

d. Insidious Uncaring

e. Enticing money-grabbing

f. Callous Contemporaries

g. Lure Sly

h. Peers Encouragement

i. Incentives Inundating

j. reach Tempting

3. Insert the words on the right in the appropriate gaps:

Food Companies Targeting Kids Online

____________-greedy corporate marketeers have found a new means of ensnaring children into the net of consumerism. Not ________ with

light content

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bombarding kids on TV, in the streets and at schools, marketing executives are utilizing Internet games to ________ their wares to unsuspecting children. The latest insidious ________ of more than eighty percent of the world’s chocolate and snack food companies has been brought to

________ in a new report, entitled “It's Child's Play: Advergaming and the Online Marketing of Food to Children”. It is “the first comprehensive analysis of the nature and ________ of online food advertising to children”. The research was commissioned by America’s Kaiser Family Foundation and exposes the questionable ________ of companies such as Mars, Hersheys and McDonalds in targeting children to promote their products. The latter company, in particular, focuses its ads more on enticing kids with cheap ________ toys than food.

giveaway

The report ________ increases the likelihood of a new word entering the English vocabulary – the “advergame” – an immoral and callous technique to get kids ________ while having online fun. In addition, a variety of other advertising and marketing tactics designed to lure kids into spending an ________ amount of online time being ________ with corporate logos are employed on these sites. These include viral marketing (encouraging children to contact their ________ about a specific product or brand, found on 64% of sites); promotions (65%); memberships (25%); on-demand ________ to TV ads (53%); and incentives for product purchase (38%).

Kaiser’s William Dietz said the scale of this advertising was an “eye opener”. It ________ ethical concerns about the role food advertising plays in childhood obesity. Kaiser vice president Vicky Rideout warned the ________ of online advertising is much deeper than that of television.

reach

4. Imagine you are a marketing executive for a junk food company. In teams, come up with an advertisement (not longer than 5 lines) in order to promote your products in: a school, hospital, mall, library, or office building.

5. Complete the text below by inserting the word in brackets with its correct prefix.

The job advertisement had asked for a self-motivated individual with good social skills. I remember thinking that the salary wasn't brilliant, but the job didn't seem too (1) ___________ (paid) for what was required. However, I soon found out that what they wanted was a workaholic! The factory was dirty, noisy, and the work was incredibly tiring. The place was seriously (2) ___________ (staffed) with ten people doing the work of fifteen - and the management was lazy and (3) ___________ (efficient). It soon became clear that anything the factory produced was (4) ___________ (standard) as quality control was minimal. Not surprisingly, relations within the workforce were poor and it was impossible to get anybody to co-operate on projects. People were either irritable and (5) ___________ (patient) or just couldn't be bothered. I remember the day I finally handed in my resignation. I tried to explain some of the problems I'd experienced to senior management, and implied that some of their working practices were quite frankly (6) ___________ (legal). But, true to form, they were completely (7) ___________ (communicative) and (8) ___________ (interested). I was faced with a wall of silence, then more or less thrown out of the factory gates!

6. Explain what the following concepts mean:

- retail therapy (shopping therapy)

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- shopaholic

- compulsive shopping - shopping spree

*What needs are compulsive shoppers fulfilling when they buy something?

7. Read the article “Consumerism: One Choice Too Many”¹⁷ and summarize it in one phrase:

Federal law permits people to take their phone numbers with them if they switch cell phone service. It's nice to have more flexibility—but is this really what we need? Already, getting phone service forces consumers to navigate a bewildering set of decisions: peak minutes and off-peak, family plans and individual rates, flip-phones or one-piece "candy bar" devices, analog, digital or GSM service, text messaging and camera capabilities, plastic color palettes and vast ringtone libraries, recharging equipment and battery types, hands-free accessories, phones with web access and phones that act like walkie-talkies.

Cellular service is an extreme example, but American life is flooded with too many choices, says Barry Schwartz, a psychologist at Swarthmore College. In his book The Paradox of Choice, he argues that the result is a society of stressed-out and unsatisfied customers. Options overload applies to everything from raising children to buying jeans, and might be at the root of that "overwhelmed" feeling that's been going around.

Choices seem like a good thing—prices stay low, and we can have things that are

"just right." But Schwartz argues that at least in the United States, as consumer options have proliferated, we've long since passed that point. People faced with too many options are likely to throw up their hands and not bother—even when a lot is at stake. Some people respond by trying to examine every possibility as thoroughly as possible—and they are the unhappiest of all, says Schwartz. A "maximizer," to use Schwartz's term, second-guesses his decisions, constantly looking over his shoulder to see what he missed. "Maximizers do better, but feel worse," Schwartz says—they are never satisfied that they've made the best choice. While some might be born that way, he speculates that our consumer culture actually breeds maximizers: The average American is exposed to 3,000 ads a day. Happier are the people who Schwartz calls "satisficers," who simply use the standard of "good enough." And if you can't remember that "perfect" is the enemy of "good," Schwartz says that remembering to feel grateful for what we have releases us from the tyranny of choice.

17 Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200401/consumerism-one-choice-too-many

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UNIT 21: Happiness

1. Fill the gaps in the sentences using these key words from the text:

drift off cognitive wellbeing reminisce anticipate random

distracted focused consistently engaging

a) If you are ……….., you are not able to concentrate on something.

b) If something happens ………, it happens regularly and in the same way.

c) A person’s ………. is the satisfactory state they should be in, especially as regards their health and security.

d) If you are ………..., you are concentrating on a particular aim and not wasting time or energy on other things.

e) When you think and talk about enjoyable experiences in the past it is said you

………..

f) If a task is ………, it is interesting and keeps your attention.

g) If you ……….. something, you think that it will probably happen.

h) Something is ………. when it is chosen or it happens without any particular method, pattern or purpose.

i) If you ………., you either stop concentrating on something or you fall asleep.

j) ……… processes are those that are connected with recognizing and understanding things.

2. Decide whether the statements below are true (T) or false (F). Then check your answers by reading the text.

a) People spend more than half their time thinking about something other than what they are actually doing.

b) If your mind wanders, this will make you less happy.

c) Being distracted is the cause of happiness.

d) People are happiest when they are doing sports or are in a conversation.

e) People are in a content state of mind when using a home computer.

3. Put the following phrases in the text:

a) and what made them most happy; b) what they are actually doing; c) to reflect on the past and learn from it; d) made them less happy; e) to support the advice; f) failed to hold people’s attention; g) cognitive achievement; h) at random times; I) the lead author of the study; j) the cause of unhappiness.

Living in the moment really does make people happier¹⁸

Psychologists have found that people are distracted from the task at hand nearly half of the time, and this daydreaming consistently makes them less happy.

Happiness is found by living in the now, according to a major study into mental wellbeing. But the study also found that people spend nearly half their time (46, 7%) thinking about something other than (1) ……….

18 By Ian Sample, 11 November, 2010, adapted from The Guardian

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The benefits of seizing the day are extolled by many philosophic and religious traditions, but until now there has been scant scientific evidence (2) ………

Psychologists at Harvard University collected information on the daily activities, thoughts and feelings of 2,250 volunteers to find out how often they were focused on what they were doing, (3) ………. They found that people were happiest among other things when exercising or conversing, and least happy when working, resting or using a home computer.

And although subjects’ minds were wandering nearly half of the time, this consistently (4)

………

The team concluded that reminiscing, thinking ahead and daydreaming tend to make people more miserable, even when they are thinking about something pleasant. Even the most engaging tasks (5) ………. Volunteers admitted to thinking about something else at least 30% of the time while performing these tasks.

“Human beings have the unique ability to focus on things that aren’t happening right now. That allows them (6) ………..; it allows them to anticipate and plan for the future; and it allows them to imagine things that might never occur”, said Matthew

Killingsworth, (7) ……… “At the same time, it seems that human beings often use this ability in ways that are not productive and, furthermore, can be destructive to our

happiness”, he added.

For the study, Killingsworth developed a web application for the iphone that

contacted participants (8) ……… during their waking hours. When they received a message, those taking part had to respond with information about what they were doing and how they rated that activity. The results showed that happiness was more affected by how often people drifted off than by the activity they were doing at the time. The researchers say they’re confident that being distracted was (9) ……… rather than the other way around.

The authors write in the Science journal: “A human mind is a wandering mind and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. The ability to think about what is not happening is a (10) ……… that comes at an emotional cost.”

4. Find the words and phrases in the text:

a) gerund that means to fantasize

b) verb that means to praise enthusiastically c) adjective meaning very little or not enough d) verb meaning to move around aimlessly e) verb meaning to take place or to exist

f) a two-word expression meaning while you are not asleep g) an expression meaning vice-versa

5. Reading comprehension.

a. Check your predictions from exercise 2.

b. What does Killingsworth’s research try to find out?

c. How did he conduct his research?

d. What is the general conclusion of the study?

e. How do think the relationship between happiness and technology will evolve?

6. Writing. Amy Bloom says that the Fundamentally Sound, Top Five Components of Happiness are: (1) Be in possession of the basics — food, shelter, good health, safety. (2) Get enough sleep. (3) Have relationships that matter to you. (4) Take compassionate care of others and of yourself. (5) Have work or an interest that engages you.

In your opinion, is there more to happiness than this?

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