UNIT
7 The longer read
When we lived unplugged
1 My mum’s always complaining about passwords.
She always says she lived more than half her life
without having to remember a single password.
I wouldn’t mind but she really only has about six
5 different ones – her Facebook account, her bank, her
email and a few others … But it makes you think,
doesn’t it? It’s amazing how much our lives have
changed in such a short time. Mobile phones have
been around for decades, but smartphones only
10 really began to take off in the 2010s. Before that,
very few phones had internet connection, not to mention apps for getting around, ordering food, paying
for goods and services, communicating with people and the vast range of other daily activities we do now
almost exclusively through our mobile phones. I guess my mum can be forgiven for wanting to ‘get off the
grid’, as she says, every so often. So we did. We put our phones away and she told me about ‘the old days’
15 as she likes to say, and what her life was like growing up without a smartphone.
First of all, she says she remembers a time when all cars had a road map. Most people kept it in a pocket
on the back of the front seat of a car. They were huge thick books with pages and pages of sections of
maps. On a long journey, you had to use several pages to plan your journey. It might start on page 47, then
jump to page 83 because the road you were taking went up off the top of the former onto the latter. Later
20 on, there was a website called MapQuest which showed you the route and a set of driving instructions.
You printed them out and took them with you, or memorised them for shorter journeys. If you were on
your own, part of your journey inevitably involved pulling over to consult these instructions. Shortly after
that, they had GPS but it was a separate device, which had to be updated regularly by connecting it
to your computer with a USB cable and downloading the latest versions of the maps. Google Maps for
25 mobile devices was only launched in 2008.
Then she showed me her digital camera. A little rectangular device with a large screen on the back to view
the photos – she still had some old photos of me as a baby! When you switch it on, a small motor would
push the lens out. If you wanted to post a photo online, you had to connect it up to your computer with a
USB cable, ‘download’ the photos on to the computer and post them from there. There were no handy photo
30 editing apps with filters or funny cat whiskers … and there was no such thing as memes! It was the same
with music. First, she had CDs that she played on her Discman – a portable CD player. Then MP3 players, then
iPods. She told me that she thinks having a device with over 5000 songs on it is still pretty cool!
At the weekends, she spent most of her time out in the street hanging out with her friends. Generally, her
parents had no idea where she was and she couldn’t be contacted because there were no mobile phones.
35 (Wouldn’t that be great?!) She went home when it got dark or at dinner time – which was prearranged
with Granny. If she couldn’t go out, she would call her friends on the landline and they’d talk for hours. She
remembers they had a big old phone with a dial. It had a cable that was several metres long so she could
take it into her bedroom. She had to remember the phone numbers of all her friends. Then they got a phone
with caller ID so you could see the number and the name of the person who was calling. She said it was really
40 handy when someone called and you didn’t want to talk to them. They also got an answering machine,
which you hooked up to the phone and it would answer when you weren’t around – I think they had one on
Friends – and the caller would record a message for you.
My mother insists life was much easier in the past and that all this technology has made life much
more complicated. But I have to disagree. Life is so much simpler now … except for having to remember
45 passwords, I guess.
Get Involved! B2 © Macmillan Education Limited 2021
UNIT
7 The longer read
1 Look at the objects in the photo. What 3 Write the word or words the following
are they? Do you know how to use reference words refer to in the blog.
them? Explain.
1 ones (line 5)
2 Read the blog. Choose the correct answers
according to the text. 2 that (line 10)
1 Why does the author use the expression
‘I wouldn’t mind but …’ in the first 3 did (line 14)
paragraph?
a To show she’d like to help her mother 4 the former (line 19)
to remember her passwords.
b Because she thinks her mother
5 the latter (line 19)
shouldn’t really complain about
passwords if she only uses one.
c Because her mother never remembers 6 it (line 23)
the passwords that she uses.
2 Why does the author admit that she 7 there (line 29)
understands her mother?
a Because the use of smartphones is 8 them (line 40)
relatively new but we do a lot of things
with them now.
b Because she also gets frustrated with 4 Word work Complete the sentences with
remembering lots of different passwords. the underlined words in the blog.
c Because it was much easier in the past 1 Harry the speakers to the
to do all the things we now do on our computer so we could hear the video.
mobile phones. 2 My dad gave me some tips
3 What made it so difficult to use old books for keeping my desk organised.
of road maps? 3 The majority of young
a A journey might go over several pages people have never used a phone with a
that weren’t together. dial on it.
b You had to print out complicated 4 The new iPhone will be
instructions. next September.
c It was difficult to find where you were 5 My dad started feeling sleepy while
on the map. he was driving, so we suggested
4 What was the most useful aspect of caller so he could have a rest.
ID, according to the author’s mother? 6 The party wasn’t really . We
a It answered the phone calls for you. just decided to celebrate the end of the
exams without making any plans.
b You could take the phone wherever you
wanted. 5 Think about something you often use your
c You could ignore someone who you smartphone for. Describe what you do and
didn’t want to talk to. why it would be impossible or much more
difficult without it.
Subskill: Referencing
It helps to pay close attention to reference
words to be able to understand the
text correctly.
Get Involved! B2 © Macmillan Education Limited 2021
