Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 2

The happiness formula

C = Commentator, T = Professor Tim Jackson, E = Professor Ed Diener

C: Happiness we’re told is ours at the push of a button. Technology promises to free us

from drudgery and open up new possibilities for fun. But the science of happiness

warns that machines could lead us to misery. We must educate the next generation on

the risks and how to design happiness into the future.

To many, human progress is measured by our increased ability to avoid doing the

chores. Labour saving devises have indeed transformed lifestyle. But the technological

utopia where we have more free time to be with our friends, to have fun and to be

happy just doesn’t seem to have happened. Fifty years ago a day might have been

spent cooking and washing. Today we might sit staring at a screen to earn the money

to pay for the latest machine. Few of us would go back to a mangle. But all of that

sophisticated wizardry hasn’t added much happiness to our lives.

P: The labour saving device, the thing that was to free up out time hasn’t done its job.

T: In fact technology is increasingly filling our time. But the pleasure on offer is often

solitary. Scientists know human contact is critical to happiness but technology can

push it out of our lives. Even online communities may actually be just another way to

avoid social interaction in the real world?

E: Sometimes people say is there a key to happiness? There’s no one magic key. Once

you find that key you’re gonna be happy. But rather there’s a recipe, there’s a set of

ingredients that has to be put together in the correct way in each person’s life.

C: We now know some of those ingredients, good social relationships. Meaning – which

may come from religion or it may come from a philosophy of life. Having goals that are

interesting to work on and which use your strengths and abilities. These are some of

the ingredients for happiness.

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 Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 2

World view

Ju = Jurgen, A = Audrey, G = Guillem, H = Helen, Lu = Luis

Ju: Um technology generally makes me quite happy but there’s one piece of technology

that I really, really do not like um and that is instant messaging on your phone.

Whereas in the past you only had a land line so people had to ring you at home and

you actually had to be at home to pick up the phone. That was quite good because you

could escape from people. Then you got mobile phones with um sms text messaging

and voicemails uh which meant that people could still reach you even though your

phone was switched off. And now we’ve got instant messaging which is even worse

because people can actually tell whether or not you’ve received their messages and

that’s quite annoying.

A: Um I think I would say that generally technology um has made me happier in the sense

that it’s made my life easier. Um I think especially for a woman nowadays when you’re

trying to work and you maybe you have a house to run and a family, the fact that there

are things to help um technological kind of aids, I think that’s, that’s good. Um and I

would say that probably at home the thing which for me has um made my life easiest is

the dishwasher because when I get home from work I have, uh it’s always quite

stressful because I have to you know prepare food, cook food, clean up after food um

and it takes up quite a lot of time. But since I’ve had the dishwasher I find that um at

least that part of the evening, that sort of arguing with the children about who’s doing

the dishes and that, it used to take up quite a lot of time in the early evening but now

that I have a machine to do that for me it means I can spend more time with my family.

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 Upper Intermediate Video script Unit 2
G: Uh I think that technology, especially uh technology that has uh made an improved

communication, uh has like helped a lot like you know, my social life and like uh, and

uh it’s uh comparing it with uh the times where you were sending letters with people

like that you uh met once or like were living in other cities and now I can communicate

with friends from university, friends living anywhere in the world. And chatting about like

a movie, uh, uh I saw, about new music bands. So clearly that has um made a different

in my life.

H: A type of technology that um I thinks’ improved my life and made me much happier is

catch up TV that you can watch whenever you’re available. I don’t really like just

watching whatever is on TV so being able to watch my favourite programs when it’s

convenient to me has made my life much better and um just in a small way. It’s made

me happier.

Lu: I think technology has been fantastic making, uh making life much, much easier for

everyone but there are some negative aspects to it. Um one of the things that I really

find um difficult to, to live with and work with is the computer. I’ve got a computer at, at

work, I also have a computer at home and I spend six or eight hours a day in front of a

computer and at the end of the day I talk to very few people. I just spend my time

answering emails or doing work on the computer, looking at the computer and not

looking at anything uh else around me and I find that very, very sad.

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