📙 Part 2: Describe a program or an app on your computer or your phone

This episode's vocabulary

A daily basis (adv phr) – every day. → I check my emails on a daily basis.

Regular occurrence (n) – something that happens often. → Seeing wildlife in this area is a fairly regular occurrence.

Kill time (idiom) – to do something that keeps you busy while you are waiting for something else to happen. → I brought a book to the airport to kill time before my flight.

Motion sickness (n) – the feeling of being unwell when you are travelling in a moving vehicle. → Reading in the car often gives me motion sickness.

Set up a profile (phr v) – to create a personal account on a website or app. → The first thing I did was set up a profile and add a picture.

A mixed bag (idiom) – a range of different things or people of various qualities. → The new restaurant has a mixed bag of reviews; some love it, some hate it.

Misinformation (n) – wrong information, or the fact that people are misinformed. → There is a lot of misinformation about health on the internet.

Be selective (v) – intentionally choosing some things and not others. → You have to be selective about which news sources you trust.

Overload (v) – to give someone more work or problems than they can deal with. → It's easy to overload yourself with information from social media.

Downsides (n) – the disadvantages or negative aspects of a situation. → Despite the downsides, working from home has many benefits.

Stay abreast of (idiom) – to make sure you know all the most recent facts about a subject or situation. → It's important to stay abreast of the latest developments in your field.

Drawbacks (n) – a disadvantage or the negative part of a situation. → One of the drawbacks of living in a big city is the noise.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Describe a program or app, application on your computer or your phone. You should say what it is, how often you use it, when, how you use it, when and how you found it, and explain how you feel about it.

Rory: I'm going to talk about Instagram. When it comes to what it is, it's a social media site with an app that you can download onto your phone so you can connect with your friends and family in a variety of ways. In terms of how often I use it, I think it's pretty much on a daily basis, really. I'm on it when I go to the gym or just walking to and from various places, so checking it is a fairly regular occurrence throughout the day for me. To tell you a bit more about when and how I use it, I like to check it at least once a day to see if I have any messages or share different memes and short films called reels with my friends. Oh, and if I'm ever bored, it can be a fun way to kill time, like if I'm on the bus and reading a book is difficult, because sometimes I get motion sickness. Oh, and, well, like I said, I also look at it at the gym between sets when I'm waiting to use equipment, for example. As for when and how I found it, I think I started using it about six years ago when my friends and colleagues suggested I download it and set up a profile. Since then, it's been a bit of a mixed bag at times. On the one hand, I've been able to meet with people in my life and have fun. But on the other hand, there's a lot of misinformation and weird behavior that I've seen. So, you have to be selective and not overload yourself with it, I think. Or at least that's true for me. So to explain how I feel about it, despite the downsides I mentioned, I'm still reasonably glad I have the app on my phone, since it's still a useful tool for finding out what people close to me are interested in and staying abreast of their personal lives. If I didn't have it, then I'm sure I'd have found a similar app that does similar things, but this is just the easiest one for me to use.

Maria: And what about your friends? Do they use it?

Rory: Oh yeah, I think all of them are on there.