WARM-UP
◍Research and
discuss merits and demerits of social media.
Merits:
Demerits:
◍Would you like to
go back to the times without social media? Why/Why not?
Composition
Sample Sentence Structures
A. Nowadays, many people seem to believe that ～ always, ---, but I think that ～also ------.
今日、多くの人が～は常に
--- だと信じているようだ。しかし～はまた
----- だと思う。
1. 今日多くの人が科学技術による開発は常に私たちの生活を改善すると信じているようだ。しかしそれはまた生活から多くの大切なものを奪うと思う。
2. Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure.
B In my country Japan, ～have helped us ---,
but we now face -----
私の国日本では、～は私たちが --- するのを助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは ----- に直面している。
1. 私の国日本では、原子力が豊かな生活の享受を助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは福島原発事故(Fukushima
nuclear disaster, Fukushima meltdown)による放射能汚染問題に直面している。
2. Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure
Answer Keys
WARM-UP
◍Research and
discuss merits and demerits of social media.
Merits: decentralization of information, faster and more frequent
communication, mass dissemination of good ideas and movements, online business/shopping
Demerits: fake news,
monopoly, income gap, manipulation of perception, new types of crimes
◍Would you like to
go back to the times without social media? Why/Why not?
STEP 1 Composition
Sample Sentence Structures
B. Nowadays, many people seem to believe that ～ always, ---, but I think that ～also ------.
今日、多くの人が～は常に --- だと信じているようだ。しかし～はまた ----- だと思う。
3. 今日多くの人が科学技術による開発は常に私たちの生活を改善すると信じているようだ。しかしそれはまた生活から多くの大切なものを奪うと思う。
Nowadays, many people seem to believe that the development by
technology always improves our lives, but I think that it also deprives a lot
of important things of our lives.
4. Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure.
Nowadays, many people seem to believe that social media always
contribute to democratization of our world, but I think that they also widen gaps
between the rich and the poor.
B In my country Japan, ～have helped us ---,
but we now face -----
私の国日本では、～は私たちが --- するのを助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは ----- に直面している。
3. 私の国日本では、原子力が豊かな生活の享受を助けてきた。しかし現在私たちは福島原発事故(Fukushima
nuclear disaster, Fukushima meltdown)による放射能汚染問題に直面している。
In my country Japan, nuclear power has helped us enjoy prosperous
life, but we now face the problem of radioactive contamination due to Fukushima
nuclear accident.
4. Your own composition on social media using this sentence structure
In my country Japan, social media have helped us create new pop
culture such as emoji, but we now face vocabulary shortage and disability to
comprehend even a short passage.
Writing Topic
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Technology
always contributes to improving human society. Use specific reasons and
examples to support your answer.
☆Let’s Think
1. How do the following two sentences differ? Which do you think
describes sports less accurately?
a. Sports contribute to friendship.
b. Sports always contribute to friendship.
2. What is the difference between “the world” and “human society”? Do
they overlap?
3. Do you agree with the statement in the Writing Topic above? Why or
why not?
Notes
The word “always” is a key to answer this question. There are not
many things that always happen. You may say to your friend, “You are always
complaining about your sister,” but you do not literally mean it. You know she
does many other things. Most things have exceptions. If some exceptions can be
cited about the statement in a writing topic, the conclusion will be
negative.
☆Hints for Points
1. Technology has helped cook better meals, wear more comfortable
clothing, and build a shelter to avoid elements. It also helps transportation
and communication. It helps us import and export goods and services. It allows
those who are away from each other communicate with ease. It saves us time by
doing routines. Dangerous jobs are done by technology. Jobs that are impossible
by human hand can be done by technology. Many kinds of technologies make our
lives richer and longer than before.
2. It is difficult to say that human society has been improved as
technology improved. For example, Yuval Noah Harari says that we were happiest
when we were hunting and gathering, before we came up with irrigation,
rice-paddy technology, which stole most of our free time and healthy diet.
3. Pollution has caused many suffering and deaths. Although not affecting
our life before, global warming has started biting because human society is
part of the world.
4. Some claim that even if technology causes a problem, it makes up for
it, and thus all in all, technology makes our world better. However, victims of
technological development will be unhappy forever. For example, atomic bombs
made the victims’ lives shorter and/or hard and nothing can make up for this
loss.
☆Essay for Ideas
and Expressions
When it comes to the merits and demerits of technology, I think the
following quote says it all:
“Technology is basically neutral. It’s kind of like a hammer. The
hammer doesn’t care whether you use it to build a house, or whether a torturer
uses it to crush somebody’s skull.” － Noam Chomsky – I
cannot totally agree with the statement that technology always contributes to
improving human society because technology is created and used by humans and
humans are both good and bad.
Technology in itself is neither good nor bad. A hammer is basically
neither good nor bad. Man uses it to do either good or bad things. You could
replace the word hammer in the quote above with, say, a jet engine, atomic
energy, information technology (IT), and so on. Then you could make similar
sentences for the same idea:
A jet engine
doesn’t care whether you use it to fly an airplane to carry people and goods
over the oceans or whether someone uses it to have a plane smash into a huge
commercial building.
Atomic
energy doesn’t care whether a government uses it for power plants to light up
its cities, or whether a state uses it to destroy a whole city and eliminate
almost all of its population.
Information
technology doesn’t care whether people use it to share information to improve
each other’s situation, or whether some social media users end up with driving
an actor to commit suicide.
Our nature makes technology both a boon and a curse. Technology can
be used in both positive and negative ways depending on us humans, and humans
have both positive and negative sides. We can be ill-intentioned, weak, or
careless. Therefore, technologies are often used negatively to the benefit of
the human race.
Also, our ignorance has made technology go out of control. What
science knows is only a fraction of nature and technology is part of our
society, which we do not remember the last time we controlled well. Thus,
technology often causes results that no one could foresee. Antibiotics were
discovered and developed to save lives, but in decades their overuse has
created super bugs, antibiotic-resistant viruses. The development of
transportation, by which humans and things spread around the world and which
contributed to the development of some societies, impoverished many societies,
accelerated warming, and spread microorganisms and fungi, causing numerous
deaths and threatening the future of the earth. Technology is almost always
related to both positive and negative changes of society.
It is true that we have used technology to make our lives
convenient. It is also true that we have used technology to overcome difficulties
caused by technologies. However, the fact that technology has been the cause of
countless number of degradation of life and death will not disappear no matter
how wonderful an improvement we use technology for. Therefore, it cannot be
said that technology always contributes to improving human society.
☆Making the Framework of the Full Essay
Sample Essay Structure
【Introduction = Outline】 Disagree: a
double edged sward; he who uses it can be both productive and unproductive
【Point 1】can be a weapon e.g. atomic
energy
【Point 2】can bring about disasters e.g.
oil well drilling technology
【Point 3】can degrade some part of the
population e.g. social media
【Conclusion = Wrap-up】often negative
effects on the development of human society
Your Sample Essay Structure
【Introduction = Outline】
【Point 1】
【Point 2】
【Point 3】
【Conclusion = Wrap-up】
