M: Rory, when did you start using the internet?

R: I've never really thought about it before, but it must have been around the time I was 11 or 12, or around about that age when we bought our first computer and had it hooked up to the internet then. Not that I did much with it. I would usually just browse and chat to other people using that.

M: How often do you go online?

R: Probably just about every day now. Actually, I can't remember the last time I had an internet-free day, to be honest with you. We're so used to just looking at screens from dawn until dusk nowadays, or at least I am.

M: How does the Internet influence people?

R: Well, I'm not sure the internet itself does anything to influence people in a particular direction, but the things people put on there definitely do. They could encourage them to buy things through the fear of missing out, or incite them to take all kinds of actions by exposing them to, well, all kinds of incendiary content, really.

M: Do you think you spent too much time online?

R: I mean, how do you define too much? Am I on so much that it's a detriment to my health? I wouldn't say so. Although that is what an addict would say, I suppose. However, objectively speaking, I still manage to get all my jobs done for the day, and I'm not usually too distracted by things on there, so I think my time online is pretty reasonable, to be honest.

M: What would you do without the Internet?

R: Life would be turned completely upside down for me. I run my classes on there and communicate with my friends and family and students and colleagues. Like with email or just messaging apps. So without the internet to help me to do all of those things, I'd be pretty isolated, and I'd actually have a lot more work to do. It's actually quite scary to think about.

M: So dear listener, the internet, the big monster and our saviour. Rory, do we usually say the internet, or can I use it without the?

R: Well, you could, if it was used as an adjective, but if we're talking about the thing, then the internet. There is only one.

M: Can I say I love internet?

R: No.

M: I love the internet.

R: Yes. Do you love the internet?

M: I love the internet. That's my life.

R: With no qualms. Just the internet. We love you, internet. Thank you for making our lives easier!

M: Thank you for making our life possible.

R: I know...

M: And, Rory, tell us. Which proposition do we usually use with the Internet? Is it in the internet, at, on?

R: It is on the internet, online. On the internet. Websites on the internet. Look at the internet on your phone.

M: So we go online and we look at the information on the internet, dear listener. It's always on. A very nice grammar structure Rory used. I've never really thought about it. When did you start using the internet? Like, come on...

R: I don't know. Do people record these things?

M: In their diary, yeah, like 1895.

R: That's when I started using the internet.

M: And then, dear listener, a far more advanced grammar structure, it must have been when I was 11. So I probably started using the internet when I was 11, but I'm not sure. But like, it's probable, probably, like, maybe, like, 80%. So Rory says it must have happened when I was 11. Okay?

R: Yes.

M: C2, band nine.

R: I'm glad you picked up on that because must have been for logical deduction. Oh, I love it.

M: Yeah, you can say that probably it was when I was 11, but that's boring, dear listener. Like it must have been when I was 11. Nice. And then Rory used a phrasal verb. To be hooked up to the internet.

R: But we had it hooked up to the internet.

M: Ooh, yeah.

R: So if we had it done, someone else did it for us. Because back in those days, you needed, I think, a telephone engineer to do that.

M: So if you have something hooked up to the internet like it is connected to something. So my computer was hooked up to the internet, or I had my computer hooked up to the internet, I paid certain people. They came to my home and they connected my computer to the internet.

R: Very important difference in the use of prepositions here, because hooked up to the internet is a phrasal verb, but you could be hooked on the internet, which means you are addicted to the internet. You could be hooked on drink or drugs or the internet. It all means that you're addicted to it.

M: I'm hooked on the internet means I'm addicted to the internet. I can't stop using it. Which verb do we use when we say I use the internet?

R: Oh, gosh. There are lots of verbs for using the internet. Access the internet, browse the internet, and that is the one I used.

M: Yeah, I usually browse the internet. I go online every waking minute of my life. So when I'm not asleep, I'm online. Hey! And a very nice phrase is an internet-free day. Dear listener, here we use an, which is not about the internet, it's about day. So a day free from the internet can become an internet-free day. Yay! Rory, give us a sentence.

R: Well, here it was I can't remember the last time I had an internet-free day, but in general, I don't have internet-free days. So here we've turned the word internet into an adjective with the word free meaning without. What else can be free?

M: Sugar-free.

R: Sugar-free. Yes. Alcohol-free beer. So anytime we don't have something that we expect to be there. Internet free, sugar-free. It's not there.

M: Problem-free world. When you talk about your habits. So it's my habit to use the internet every day. You can say, I am used to browsing the internet in the evening, okay? Or I'm used to looking at the information on the internet. So I am used to doing something. It's my habit. So here, Rory told us, like today we are so used to just looking at screens. So we are used to browsing the internet every day. And then a nice idiom, from dawn until dusk. Pretty much all day long.

R: From the beginning of the day to the end of the day.

M: The internet influences people, or you can say the internet affects people or has an influence on people. We can also use it as a verb to influence somebody, with no preposition. So the internet influences people. And people put certain information on the internet. The internet incites people to take all kinds of actions. A nice verb. To incite.

R: Yes. So that's like to encourage in a negative way. You can incite violence or incite hatred. So it's usually about a negative thing.

M: Can I use it like the internet incites me to donate money to charity?

R: I mean, if it was a bad charity, but if it's a charity, it's usually good. So, no, not really.

M: No. Yeah. So usually about something unpleasant, violent, so negative, like, it incited hatred, okay? Like encouraged hatred.

R: Incite revolution.

M: Yeah. Or kind of these ads incited public opinion against the government. Could you give us another example with incite?

R: Well, people frequently get incited to violence by things they see on the internet.

M: Another phrasal verb is miss out, and we may have the fear of missing out when I'm afraid. I'm scared that I've missed out on some bargains, on some deals, on some discounts, because I need to buy things at a good price. So I have this fear of missing out. Not learning about something, not reading the news, not using the internet, not checking all my social media. How can we use it in a sentence? The fear of missing out.

R: If people are on social media too much, they can suffer the fear of missing out because they see people having all of these fun times that they don't get to participate in.

M: Rory, tell us, how did you paraphrase the thing that the internet is bad for my health? What did you say in a band nine kind of way?

R: Ah, okay. Did you mean it's detrimental to my health?

M: Yeah, but you didn't say detrimental. You've used it as a noun.

R: Yes, I said it's a detriment to my health, but that just means it's bad for my health.

M: Exactly. Normally, we say it's detrimental to my health. It's like bad, it's negative, but we can also use it as a noun, detriment. It's rather formal, which means harm or damage, like without detriment to your health, and usually to. Detriment to my health.

R: What other things can be a detriment to your health?

M: Alcohol.

R: Going for a walk inside a volcano.

M: No, come on, the volcano is okay.

R: Perfectly normal human behaviour for Maria.

M: Exactly. You know, I was just, I've been inside volcanoes many times. It's quite cool. And you can feel volcanoes breathing, you know, like... Like this. No, no, joking.

R: That sounds absolutely terrifying.

M: Yeah, like, like a dinosaur ready to attack. Um, that's enough of the funny noises from Maria. Thank you very much, dear listener. No, no, no, we are not done yet. An addict. Okay? So if a person becomes an addict, like addicted to the internet, it's detrimental to our health. Ooh, and usually we get distracted by things online, yeah? To get distracted by ads, videos, and social media. The last question is very interesting. Like, what would you do without the Internet? Come on, like we would die. We would not be here.

R: Life would be over. Life would not be worth living.

M: Can you imagine, dear listener? Have you ever been to a place without the internet? When your phone is like a brick, like, you can't do anything with your phone. But now, you know, people have started creating these places without any connection, like for travellers, for people to relax. And actually, more and more people are seeking these places without any connection. Could we say they are internet-free zones?

R: Yes. An internet-free existence.

M: People are looking for an internet-free existence. Dear listener, is it about you? No?

R: Please don't make it about you, because you need to listen to this podcast.

M: A very nice phrase, life would be turned completely upside down. Okay? When you turn it upside down. So if I take you, dear listener, your body, and I put your head on the floor and your feet up, I would turn you upside down. So without the internet, my life would be turned completely upside down.

R: It would not be normal.

M: I would be pretty isolated. Okay? Alone. Isolated from everybody, like on a desert island. And we use would, I would be, it would be difficult, because we are imagining, because now, like, hopefully, you have the internet. Right? Like most people... Do most people on this planet have the internet, Rory?

R: I think so.

M: I think so. Yeah. Okay.

R: Well, we can, we can find this out. How many people... Oh, wow. Maybe not everybody.

M: No? But most, I said like most people.

R: 5.45 billion internet users worldwide, according to Google, which is 67.1% of the global population.

M: Okay. Okay, so more than a half.

R: That's crazy. I thought it was more than 67% though. It should be like, I mean, why do these other people don't have internet access? That's crazy.

M: No, but like people live in the villages, so maybe they just don't need the internet. Okay?

R: Oh, if I lived in a village, I would definitely need the internet. No offence to village-dwelling people.

M: Oh, okay, dear listener, so just remember that the human mind is like Internet Explorer. There are at least nine tabs open, three of them are frozen, and there is no clue where the music is coming from. Did you get that? Did you get the joke?

R: I didn't get that at all because I don't use Internet Explorer.

M: No. But like if you use... What is Internet Explorer? What is it?

R: It's a web browser.

M: Yeah. If, for example, the human mind is like Google, there are at least 20 tabs open, or maybe like 50 tabs open, like half of them are frozen. They're loading, and there is no clue where the music is coming from, so there's some ad running. And it's kind of like the music is coming from somewhere. So the joke is that here we are comparing the human mind to Google or Internet Explorer, or, I don't know, Yahoo, like whatever search engine you are using. Hahahaha, very funny.

R: It is hilarious. Um, moving swiftly on.

M: Thank you very much for listening, dear listener. That's all from us.

R: Bye!

M: Bye!

Make sure to subscribe to our social media to see some of the “behind the scenes” stuff!

Our Instagram: bit.ly/instagramswi
Our Telegram: bit.ly/telegramswi