Read the dialogue and then answer the questions. This dialogue was mostly written by AI and is not very realistic, but it is a good language presentation.
Ella: My dad thinks all screen time is bad. He checks every app on my phone and gives me just twenty minutes online each evening. Then he takes my phone away.
Max: Twenty minutes? That’s nothing! I spend a good deal of time on my phone. I sometimes feel like I’m addicted.
Noor: What makes you say that?
Max: I open TikTok to watch a few videos, but then I end up scrolling for hours. I do follow quite a few accounts, so there’s always something new. Afterwards, I have don’t have much time for homework.
Ella: At least you can choose! I have no access to my phone after eight. Most of my friends chat online then, so I miss everything.
Noor: I can understand why you’re annoyed. Screens give us plenty of opportunities to learn and stay in touch. I use YouTube for guitar lessons several times a week.
Max: I save loads of useful videos, but in the end, I watch very few of them. I usually end up watching gaming clips instead.
Noor: Have you tried switching off notifications?
Max: Yes. It helped a little, but I still check my phone too many times. Sometimes I get very little sleep because I watch videos in bed.
Ella: My dad says teenagers have no self-control.
Noor: That seems unfair. Some teenagers need help managing their time, but everyone’s different. There’s a lot of useful content online as well as entertainment.
Ella: Exactly! I spend a little time messaging my cousins abroad. Dad forgets that my phone helps me stay close to them.
Max: My problem is that I spend too much time watching other people do things and not enough time doing things myself.
Noor: Perhaps we need different solutions. Ella, choose a few examples of how you use your phone positively and show your dad. Max, why don’t you start with a few small changes?
Max: Like charging my phone outside my bedroom?
Noor: Yes. You’d have fewer distractions and more time to sleep. You could also follow fewer accounts and spend less time scrolling.
Ella: And I could ask Dad for a little more freedom. We could agree on rules together.
Max: I suppose most problems don’t disappear immediately.
Noor: True. But a few sensible rules can help. We don’t all need exactly the same limits.
Discuss:
- Ella has “very little time” online. Does Max think her twenty minutes is enough?
- Max starts by planning to watch “a few videos”. Does he plan to watch a small number or a large number? What actually happens?
- Max follows “quite a few accounts”. Does this mean he follows almost none, or a fairly large number?
- After scrolling, Max has “little time” for homework. Does he sound satisfied with the amount of time he has left?
- Ella has “no access” to her phone after eight. Can she use it briefly to reply to a message?
- “Most of my friends chat online then.” Does Ella mean all her friends? Could some of them be offline?
- Max saves “lots of useful videos” but watches “very few of them”. Is the number he watches large or small compared with the number he saves?
- Ella spends “a little time” messaging her cousins. Compare this with Max having “little time” for homework. Which speaker presents the amount positively?
- Noor suggests “a few small changes”. Would replacing “a few” with “few” make the suggestion sound more positive or more limited?
- Compare “a good deal of time” with “too much time”. Which expression tells us that the amount is a problem?
- Ella’s dad checks “every app” and limits her phone use “each evening”. Could he regularly skip some apps or some evenings and still match her description?
- Noor suggests “fewer accounts” and “less time”. Why does she use different quantifiers with these two nouns?
- Noor says “some teenagers” need help. Does she mean all teenagers need help? Does she tell us exactly how many?
- Max wants fewer distractions and more sleep. Does he need to stop using screens completely to achieve this?