Hey everyone and welcome back to the Understandable English podcast.
My name is Oliver and today we are going to be looking at another news article.
So we're going to be doing news in English.
If you are unfamiliar with this series, it is where I read a news article in English slowly.
I then explain some of the words which are a bit more difficult in the article.
This is a focused way to learn some new vocabulary.
I will also link the news article in the description so you can read it yourself after the podcast.
People seemed to really enjoy the last episode and it had well over 1000 listens within the first week.
So I have decided to continue the series.
So today's news article is called Internet Access Linked to Higher Wellbeing Study Finds.
So let's take a look at this and understand what it means.
So the title Internet Access Linked to Higher Wellbeing Study Finds. so what this means is internet access that is access to the internet so the ability to have internet um or internet use so using the internet is linked connected so connected or related to higher well-being so better health is basically well-being is health So mental health and physical health.
How we are.
We are well.
We are good study finds.
So some research, some academics or scientists have researched and from their research they have discovered or find that more internet use is connected or related to better health.
So to recap, the title is internet access linked to higher wellbeing study finds.
This article is from BBC news.
So it is a proper news article, not designed for English learning or anything like that.
Okay.
Let's have a look at the first paragraph.
Internet access and use is consistently associated with a positive wellbeing.
Let's rephrase this.
So using the internet or ability to use the internet is consistently.
So consistently, that means continuously.
There is a continuous link associated with positive well-being, so good health.
So using the internet is continuously, or they find multiple times that it is connected with good health, And this was found from a study of data or information from 168 countries by the Oxford Internet Institute, an organization that has looked at this.
They have done this study, or as we say, they have carried out this study.
This research comes after, in many parts of the world, including both the European Union and the United Kingdom , there have been concerns about dangers or online harms, which has prompted new laws.
Prompted.
Prompted means it has made them make new laws.
It has started something.
And in this case it has started the creation of new laws to try and protect people from the Internet.
And this research company or organization says that some of its findings, its results, are consistent.
So they show consistency.
Reported links, so connections between social media use and depressive symptoms among young women.
This is a negative finding.
It is not good.
It is bad.
So it is showing that the more young women use social media, the more sad or depressed they feel.
And although this was a bad finding overall, the next paragraph shows us that what they found is good.
The overall results concluded that the benefits from using the internet show that people making these laws or rules should not be guided by only one part of the information.
So this means that they need to look at the big picture.
They need to look at everyone.
And what the organization is arguing is that the internet overall is positive for most people.
Okay, now I'm going to skip or move a little bit further into the article.
Researchers analyzed data, so they looked at it and tried to understand which was gathered between 2006 and 2021 from 2 million individuals, 2 million people aged between 15 and 99 worldwide.
They found that people who had internet access so people that used the internet and could use it freely or actively used the internet reported so they responded, or replied that they had greater levels of life satisfaction and social well-being.
Life satisfaction and social wellbeing.
What does that mean?
Life satisfaction means that you are satisfied or happy with your life.
You think, great, I'm enjoying my life.
I feel good.
And social wellbeing is like social health.
So having friends and socializing, meeting other people.
It's interesting because often I think that maybe social media use is bad for connections or having friends, because it keeps us online.
But this study shows that countries and places with more internet use have better social well-being.
So they have more satisfaction with their social lives and their lives in general.
So very interesting results.
In general, the overall results of this research showed us that more access or use of internet led to more positive health, mental health and life outcomes.
In my opinion, I think this could be because countries that have more access to the internet have a higher standard of living.
So they have probably more money, more food, more opportunities and jobs.
And it probably isn't the internet itself that makes people happy.
So in 85 of cases so 85 of people that responded to this study it showed associations or connections between internet connectivity so using the internet and health activity that were both positive and statistically significant.
Statistically significant means that the data was important, so it was clear.
And the researchers said that with the part about young woman.
So young woman feeling more sad or depressed using social media.
This could be related with reports, so responses or replies of increased cyber bullying and negative associations with social media use.
So increased cyber bullying.
Cyber bullying is when people are not very nice online.
The word cyber bullying, cyber means like internet or digital, And bullying is when you are not very nice to someone.
So you're negative.
You say bad things and you treat them very badly over a long period of time.
Okay, so that is today's article.
I hope that was useful for you and interesting.
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Have an amazing day.
Goodbye.
