Page 6 - İngilizce 10 | 4.Ünite

THEME 4 TRADITIONS

4 A READING SPEAKING
Work in pairs. Discuss how new inventions, innovations and systems change life.

4 B
Read the text and fill in the chart about changes in lifestyles and customs as in the example.

Changes have always been part of human life, but revolutionary changes from the last quarter of the 20 century up
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to date have put the 21 century generations to the center of comfort, speed and worldwide communication. While
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younger generations enjoy a technology based and comfortable form of life, the elderly are not happy about this new
lifestyle because they cannot keep up with it and many customs and traditions disappear. Perhaps the most objective
comments could come from middle children of both centuries as they are old enough to remember the 70s, 80s, 90s,
at the same time young enough to benefit from the 21 century advantages.
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Last month, in one of his interviews, Dr. Alex Hunter, a contemporary history professor of Romania, gives examples of
life in both centuries through his own life. “The computer arrived. Before that, we used to look up words in dictionaries,
and facts in encyclopedias. We used to use phone books to find telephone numbers. In time, these traditional methods
of searching disappeared and they are a thing of the past now. People refer to search engines or mobile devices for
these now. The arrival of digital cameras killed the tradition of keeping pictures in photo albums as they have memories
for storage. We used to keep pictures in photo albums and showing them to friends or guests was a custom during
visits or family gatherings. Few people keep photo albums now as almost everyone shares pictures online nowadays.
The Internet and social media have caused a bigger gap. Numerous things have changed. Here is a simple example:
We used to send postcards to the beloved ones or visit them to celebrate occasions, but now people feel too lazy to
do these things. They share messages or good wishes on social media platforms. People used to have face to face
communication and chats, but now they run the communication via social media platforms. It is not only the Internet
based changes, of course. Even toys have changed in today’s global world. There are global toy shop chains now and
children play the same or similar toys all around the world. In the past, making toys for yourself such as toy cars, baby
dolls was a tradition...’’

Changes come with advantages and disadvantages, but they will be part of human life forever. Today’s technological
wonders such as drones, space ships, computers will be a primitive thing of the past some day. What is your future
thing of the past?

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