IELTS Academic Reading 5 - Passage 1

 

Reading Tip

Analyse the phrases 1-5 before you try to find the answers in the text. Underline or circle words that will help you locate the information. Think of synonyms of words. Answer the easy questions first: are 3 and 5 likely to be easier to find than the others?

In questions 6-10, locate the part of the text that relates to A and B.

• 

  Discuss the statements below, saying how they relate to you or people you know. 
•  1. Just under half of all young people (44 per cent) have a social networking profile. 
•  2. Forty-five per cent of young people said they felt happiest when they were online. 
•  3. Eighty-four per cent of young people said that the internet brought communities of similar people together. 
•  4. Young people are highly digitally literate in how they use media and are well connected in a social context. 
The Age of the Digital Native or M-Ager
A The internet is a 'natural' space for young people. It is fully integrated into their lives and is as commonplace for the vast majority as walking down their local high street. It is the first place that many of them will go to search for information and provides unparalleled opportunities for communicating and engaging with others. The fact that young people can interact, maintain their anonymity and compare information sources empowers them. It can give them a sense of purpose and control, especially at difficult and challenging times in their lives. At such times, feelings of being in control may on occasion be misplaced and can lead to risk of exposure to unwanted danger. However, the vast majority of young people are able to minimise risk through cross-checking information sources against one another. 


B Negotiating the vast amount of information available on the internet presents its own challenges. The ability to locate appropriate information quickly and which is in a language and format that a young person can relate to is not always easy. Equally, as young people's needs have changed so too have their expectations of how they should be able to interact with individuals, organisations and companies. 


C Young people today use a variety of digital means to communicate and interact with others at the same time - a mobile phone, a television, a laptop - to build very complex and deep 'tapestries' of connectivity to one another and internet locations. Their life experience and the context in which they use the media inevitably contain many differing behaviours and emphases. At a general level they are often labelled in a variety of ways, the most established terms being 'Digital Natives' or perhaps 'M-Agers' (short for 'Mobile Agers'). The implication in these terms is that this group has grown up surrounded by digital media with access to computers, the internet, mobile phones and digital video games from pre-school age. The Digital Native generation are young people, aged 16 to 24. The internet is a key part of young people's lives today - it is completely natural to them. It is so much a part of them that they can be said to be living hybrid lives, combining the physical and virtual in a seamless network of communication, information, entertainment and sharing. 


D For the vast majority of young people, the digital world is a far from isolating experience. It extends reach and connectivity, building on physical or close relationships as well as providing opportunities to interact and build friendships with people who are not geographically close to them. Young people associate the internet with a strong sense of community and as a place where similar people can meet and share together. It is likely that young people have far wider and more varied support communities than previous generations had. 


E They are the 'ever on' group. They demand fast and immediate access to both information and friends with the internet ensuring their friends are available whenever and wherever they need them. As access to the internet becomes ever more mobile this trend will continue. Digital Natives are not just different to their parents in using digital media in a natural and hybrid way. 


F They are often characterised as being visually literate and as having highly developed visual-spatial skills. Indeed, it has been argued that through this age group we are moving toward a more visual right brain-orientated society with an emphasis on 'creators ... and meaning makers' and that young people represent the vanguard. They are experiential, shift their attention from one task to another with great rapidity, are highly digitally literate (in how they use the media) and are well connected in a social context. Importantly, whilst older groups may judge online against an ideal of face-to-face communication (although this is changing), young people evaluate against a wide range of options including instant message, chat, phone, SMS and face-to-face according to their communication needs. These might range from immediacy, message complexity, mobility to cost, privacy, or embarrassment. 


G This is a response to both the simple presence and availability of technology and to social and environmental change. In combination it demonstrates how young people use today's tools and communication opportunities to connect to the world and to establish and maintain their identities. Although there is much debate, it should be considered that this virtual communication and connectivity is not necessarily to the detriment of more established physically rooted behaviours. Rather, it represents the degree to which, particularly this group, lives hybrid lives - lives that combine digital access and virtual communication into their physical lives.