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America’s social-media addiction is getting worse

(Sources: Pew Research Centre; e Marketer)

   A survey in January and February 2019 from the Pew Research Centre, a think tank, found that 69% of American adults use Facebook; of these users, more than half visit the site “several times a day”. YouTube is even more popular, with 73% of adults saying they watch videos on the platform. For those aged 18 to 24, the figure is 90%. Instagram, a photo-sharing app, is used by 37% of adults. When Pew first conducted the survey in 2012, only a slim majority of Americans used Facebook. Fewer than one in ten had an Instagram account.

    Americans are also spending more time than ever on social-media sites like Facebook. There is evidence that limiting such services might yield health benefits. A paper published last year by Melissa Hunt, Rachel Marx, Courtney Lipson and Jordyn Young, all of the University of Pennsylvania, found that limiting social-media usage to 10 minutes a day led to reductions in loneliness, depression, anxiety and fear. Another paper from 2014 identified a link between heavy social-media usage and depression, largely due to a “social comparison” phenomenon, whereby users compare themselves to others and come away with lower evaluations of themselves. 

(www.economist.com, 08.08.2019. Adaptado.)

               An increasing body of evidence suggests that the time we spend on our smartphones is interfering with our sleep, self-esteem, relationships, memory, attention spans, creativity, productivity and problem-solving and decision-making skills. But there is another reason for us to rethink our relationships with our devices. By chronically raising levels of cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, our phones may be threatening our health and shortening our lives.

          If they happened only occasionally, phone-induced cortisol spikes might not matter. But the average American spends four hours a day staring at their smartphone and keeps it within arm’s reach nearly all the time, according to a tracking app called Moment.

         “Your cortisol levels are elevated when your phone is in sight or nearby, or when you hear it or even think you hear it,” says David Greenfield, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and founder of the Center for Internet and Technology Addiction. “It’s a stress response, and it feels unpleasant, and the body’s natural response is to want to check the phone to make the stress go away.”

          But while doing so might soothe you for a second, it probably will make things worse in the long run. Any time you check your phone, you’re likely to find something else stressful waiting for you, leading to another spike in cortisol and another craving to check your phone to make your anxiety go away. This cycle, when continuously reinforced, leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels. And chronically elevated cortisol levels have been tied to an increased risk of serious health problems, including depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes, fertility issues, high blood pressure, heart attack, dementia and stroke.

(Catherine Price. www.nytimes.com, 24.04.2019. Adaptado.)

INSTRUÇÃO: Responder à questão com base no texto. 

Rip Van Winkle is a classic American short story written by Washington Irving based on local history _____ with influences from European folklore. It tells the story of a man who lived near the Catskill Mountains in New York before the Revolutionary War and fell asleep for twenty years. Everything he knew _____ in the town was gone. _____, he learned that he had to navigate this new world as a free citizen of the United States.

Adapted from: http://www.supersummary.com/rip-van-winkle/summary/ and https://www.bookreports.info/rip-van-winkle-summary/

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    There is nothing conventional about 17-year-old Michael Fuller’s relationship with music. As someone with high-functioning autism who sees the world through sound, creating melodies from the bustle of the high street or trains on the tracks feels more natural than any social interaction. This hardwired connection to sound has been with him for as long as he can remember.

    By the age of 11, Michael could play Mozart by ear, having taught himself to play the piano through a mobile phone app. The app highlighted notes on a keyboard as classical music played. He describes his unusual musical talent as “downloading” music into his head. His mother, Nadine, remembers that as a child Michael would “suddenly pop up and say: ‘I’ve got a symphony’”. Michael took to the piano and found he could quickly perform complex pieces from memory.

    “I liked what I was hearing, sought more music and began studying through Google and YouTube,” he remembers. “It was very organic. I would listen in great depth and the music would be implanted in my mind. I could then just play it on the piano – all without being taught.”

    Growing up in a family that listened to reggae over classical music, Michael feels “very much aware” of how different his approach is to music – symbolised by the way he taught himself piano as a child. This, his mother says, came as a “surprise to the family and myself – I’d never listened to classical music in my life”.

    It was not long after learning to play the piano that Michael started composing his own works. Describing this process as “making music with my mind”, Michael says composing classical symphonies “helps me to express myself through music – it makes me calm”. Michael wants to nurture his song writing to achieve his ambition of becoming a modern mainstream classical artist. He wants to control the creative process, unlike typical modern-day composers, who he says “write blobs on a page, hand it over to the musicians – then say bye-bye and stay in the background and get no recognition”. Instead, Michael is determined to take centre stage.

(Alex Taylor. www.bbc.com, 27.03.2018. Adaptado.)