Unit 3 Internet and Our Life
Text Analysis
I. Background information
1. About the author
A highly acclaimed writer, Nicholas Carr is a visiting professor of sociology at Williams College in Massachutts and was the former executive editor of the Harvard Business Review. His works focus on the interction of technology, economics, and culture and many of his books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages. In 2015, he received the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity from the Media Ecology Association.
2. About the text
The abridged article was originally published in the July/August 2008 edition of The Atlantic. It was collected in veral anthologies, including The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best Spiritual Writing, and The Best Technology Writing. In 2010, it was developed into a book entitle The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains,which won the Pulitzer Prize finalist.
II. General analysis of the text
In the text, the author, while acknowledging the conveniences of the Internet, reflects on the negative effects of the Internet on his own thinking and reading habits.
The author introduces the theme of the text by citing his own example, in which he mentions that he was unable to do deep reading. He then elaborates on the conveniences which the Internet has brought him, such as saving him the trouble of arching for information in libraries. The author then continues to cite his own examples and examples of others to illustrate the far-reaching negative influences on people’s thinking and reading patterns. However, despite the changes in their thinking and reading habits due to the Internet, which have obviously made them uncomfortable, they wouldn’t go back to the “good old days.” This indicates that the trend toward a heavy dependence on the Internet might never be reverd, further reflecting the irrevocable changes the Internet has made to us.
The layout of the text is as follows.
Part Paras. Main idea
Introduction1The author introduces the theme of the text by mentioning the changes in his thinking and reading habits.
Body 2-3
The author elaborates on the benefits the Internet has brought
him.
4-7
The author lists the negative impacts of the Internet by citing
his own examples and examples of others.
butyConclusion8Despite the negative impacts, the author concludes the advantages of the Internet outweigh its own disadvantages.
III. Detailed study of the text
1. Now my concentration starts to drift after a page or two.
u drift:v. [I] to move, change, or do sth without any plan or purpo
世界末日 英文
u drift around/along etc.
Jenni spent the year drifting around Europe.
u drift from sth to sth
The conversation drifted from one topic to another.
u let your gaze/eyes/thoughts/mind, etc. drift
Idly she let her eyes drift over his desk.
socksu drift:v. [I] to move slowly on water or in the air
u drift out/toward, etc.
The rubber raft drifted out to a.
Smoke drifted up from the jungle ahead of us.
2. I get fidgety, lo the thread, begin looking for something el to do.
u lo the thread: to stop concentrating so that you do not understand what someone is saying
More than once she lost the thread and had to ask them to speak more slowly.
Arthur paud, feeling he was beginning to lo the thread of his argument.
3. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s data thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, following the updates of social media, watching video streams, downloading music, or just tripping lightly from link to link to link.
u trip: v. [I] (literary)to walk, run, or dance with quick light steps
Julie kisd her mother goodbye and tripped off along the road.
A girl in a red dress tripped down the hill.
u trip: v. [I] to hit sth with your foot by accident so that you fall or almost fall
u trip over
Clary tripped over a cable and broke his foot.
u trip on
He tripped on the bottom step.
u trip: v. [T] to make someone fall by putting your foot in front of them when they are moving
One guy stuck his foot out and tried to trip me.
The referee said Jack was tripped and gave a penalty.
4. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich and easily arched store of data are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded.
u incredible: adj. too strange to be believed, or very difficult to believe
It’s incredible that he survived the fall.
I find it almost incredible that no one noticed the errors.
u incredible: adj. extremely good, large, or great
The view is just incredible.
There was blood everywhere and the pain was incredible.
u incredibly:adv. in a way that is hard to believe
The knife had pierced his heart, but incredibly he was still alive.
Incredibly, she had no idea what was going on.
5. And what the Net ems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation.
u chip away:to gradually make sth weaker, smaller, or less effective
司法考试辅导班Instead of an outright coup attempt, the rebels want to chip away at her authority.
大学生英语竞赛官网u chip away:to remove small pieces from sth hard by hitting it with a tool
U a hammer to chip away the edge.
The edges of the marble step have been chipped away over the years.
6. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends, many say they’re suffering from similar afflictions.
u affliction: n. sth that caus pain or suffering, especially a medical condition Malnutrition is one of the common afflictions of the poor.
Hay fever is an affliction which arrives at an early age.
u afflict:v. [T] to affect sb/sth in an unpleasant way, and make them suffer
He must learn to relax more, not be racked by the tortured tenness that had afflicted him for the past weeks.
Venus, however, is afflicted with a lethally hot and corrosive atmosphere.
7. I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the Web or in print.
u longish:adj. fairly long
人机对话
He has high cheekbones, and a longish no.
She’s tall, with longish black hair.
8. …Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. u elaborate:v. [I, T] to give more details or new information about sth
He said he had new evidence, but refud to elaborate any further.
u elaborate on
McDonald refud to elaborate on his reasons for resigning.
奥巴马竞选总统演讲u elaborate:adj.having a lot of small parts or details put together in a complicated way
The new healthcare plan is the most elaborate yet.
Her parents didn’t realize that it was all an elaborate lie.
9. He says he was “astonished” and “even irritated” when the woman paud to read the text on the sites she stumbled upon.
u stumble upon:to find or discover sth by chance and unexpectedly
It emerged as the most successful of the dozen experiments, largely becau it stumbled upon a different way of doing business.
u stumble: v. to hit your foot against sth or put your foot down awkwardly while you are walking or running, so that you almost fall
In her hurry, she stumbled and spilled the milk all over the floor.
She stumbled a little on the uneven path.
10. I read a lot—or at least I should be reading a lot—only I don’t. I skim. I scroll. u scroll:v. [I] to move information on a computer screen up or down so that you can read it
u scroll through
儿童节快乐英语怎么写He scrolled through the document.born和borne
u scroll up/down
Could you scroll down a few lines?
u scroll:n. a long piece of paper that can be rolled up, and is ud as an official document, especially in past times
The most ancient scroll can be traced back to early years of their ttlement on the continent.
tobehonestThe ancient scroll spreads out into a painting.
Key to the Exercis
Pre-Class Tasks
1 Mini-rearch
1. When did the Internet originate and how does it develop?
The Internet, a system architecture that has revolutionized communications and methods of commerce by allowing various computer networks around the world to interconnect. Sometimes referred to as a “network of networks,” the Internet emerged in the United States in the 1970s but did not become visible to the general public until the early 1990s.
The first computer networks were dedicated special-purpo systems such as SABRE (an airline rervation system) and AUTODIN I (a defen command-and-control system), both designed and implemented in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
By the early 1960s computer manufacturers had begun to u miconductor technology in commercial products, and both conventional batch-processing and time-sharing systems were in place in many large, technologically advanced companies. Time-sharing systems allowed a computer’s resources to be shared in rapid succession with multiple urs, cycling through the queue of urs so quickly that the computer
