Over to you

• How much time a day do you spend on emails?

• Do you think companies monitor emails for security or legal reasons, or just to check on the staff?

Part 3. Social networking

Reading

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using the Internet at work? Does anybody not use the Internet at work? Read the article and compare your answers.

Social networking sites –opportunity or threat?

Social networking sites are the next big change for the Internet. What are they exactly? They are online ways of social networking (YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) which have been made as interactive as possible. Not surprisingly this new technology is being adopted by many companies. Employees are encouraged to access employee blogs, customer forums, multimedia content and self-created encyclopedias (wikis). A recent survey of these social networking sites shows that more than 39% of people are typically accessing such a site for more than an hour a day. This is especially true for 16 to 25-year-olds. These web technologies can be accessed at work. Now during the working day not only personal emails are being sent. These days photos, music files and videos can also be shared between colleagues and friends. As with all new technologies, there are issues for companies. First of all, privacy is threatened. Professional information can be stolen on the web. There is a danger that photographs and private information could be used without permission.

threat – загроза to adopt – приймати to encourage – заохочувати to access – мати доступ a recent survey – недавно проведене опитування to share – ділитися to be threatened – бути під загрозою permission – дозвіл

Read the article below and tick ( ) the true sentences

1 Some employees in Canada are not allowed to use social network sites at work

2 Over two hours a month are spent at work on Facebook in the UK

3 Social network sites are said to be a valuable business tool

4 Facebook members are probably better educated than Bebo members

Social networking staff given a warning

Workers in Britain, America and Canada are being stopped from viewing interactive social network websites like Facebook. Companies found that wasting office time can by blocking access to social networking sites.

In the past six months, Facebook’s British audience has grown 523 per cent to 3,2 million and Facebook has already been banned by some American and Canadian companies. Two months ago,

Match the words with the definitions

Interactive techie blog intranet podcast hacker

1. Someone who knows a lot about computers and electronic equipment is a/an _________ .

2. A web page containing information or options from a particular person is a/an _________ .

3. A company network used for exchanging information within a company is a/an _________ .

4. A computer program which does things in reaction to your actions is a/an _________ .

5. A radio program that can be downloaded from the Internet is a/an _________ .

6. Someone who secretely uses or changes the information in other people’s computer systems is a/an _________ .

1. What’s the most important web technology that you use each day? Discuss some of these ideas in pairs. Make use of the following phrases:

I consider …………. the most

It enables

With its help we can

We can’t do without …………… nowadays