02.10.2020 (60)

https://getclass.io/login/P2smB/

https://zno.osvita.ua/english/394/ 

27-33

 

 

 

 

   

https://www.english-4u.de/en/grammar-exercises/conditional-sentences.htm

 

   

 

  

  

Here's your homework:

 

1 https://usefulenglish.ru/grammar/tenses-exercise-two 

send me the screen shot woth the results of the test

 

2 You had to prepare your audio answer (1 or 2 min) for the question  "Why people fall for fake news"

You may use some information given in the video or the texted that we woeked out during the lesson.

i copy them below

 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz6GULbowAk

7 Reasons Why We Fall for Fake News

Critically thinking about fake news

Posted Nov 15, 2019

The concept of fake news is nothing new. It refers to a story that isn’t true or is not entirely true, taking the form of, for example, accidental misinformation or deliberate disinformation. But what makes it problematic now more so than ever is its abundance and the fact that people keep falling for it. In a recent piece, "10 Ways to Spot Fake News," my purpose was to provide tips for identifying it; however, perhaps just as important is our understanding of why we fall for it.

1. Confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias refers to our favoring of information that confirms our existing beliefs. Without accounting for this bias in our thinking, we are more likely to fall for fake news if we agree with what is being said. This works the other way around as well; indeed, confirmation bias will yield the opposite effect, enhanced skepticism, for fake news stories we dislike. Yes, it’s good that confirmation bias can, in some contexts, help us dispel fake news; but, at the end of the day, engaging this bias exhibits a lack of critical thinking.

2. Lack of credibility evaluation.

We engage the news in order to inform ourselves, generally because we weren’t there to witness events unfold first-hand. As a result, we trust our source of news that the information they provide us is, in fact, true; and in doing so, we put trust in the source’s credibility.  But we cannot blindly do so. We must first evaluate it.

3. Attention and impatience.

On the other hand, let’s assume that the topic in question is important to you and that you do have the skill of evaluating credibility—you are still susceptible to modern trends in information processing, let alone the other psychological factors presented in this piece. That is, in today’s world, it can be argued that we have a surplus of information (Dwyer, 2017). We don’t read everything in our social media newsfeed. We scroll past articles that are unimportant or uninteresting to us; we don’t pay attention to them. Sometimes, we barely read the headlines. If we do manage to read the headline, that might be all we read.

We want our information fast because we have been primed to get it fast. Now, I’m not saying fast, efficient access to information is a bad thing; it’s not an issue of declinism here; but, I recall a time that if you wanted information on a current event, you’d have to hope it was covered in the newspaper, on the radio, or the evening news on television. Nowadays, we can just type a few letters into our phone and what we want, from a wide array of sources, is there. But along with that is other information, from unfamiliar sources, that we didn’t necessarily seek out.

Moreover, we need to ask ourselves: Are we really attending to what is being said or are we just looking for a quick answer? 

4. We are cognitively lazy.

As discussed throughout this blog, humans are cognitively lazy (Kahneman, 2011). Our brains have evolved to conserve energy for "more important" tasks; and, so, they don’t very much like expending energy when an intuitive decision can be made that is good enough

5. Our emotions are targeted.  

One of the largest barriers to critical thinking is emotion, because, simply, it makes thinking irrational. When people think with their emotions, they think based on gut-level intuitive reasoning, fueled by how they feel and by past experiences associated with those feelings—the opposite of reflective, critical thought. Fake news, like propaganda, can evoke and breed emotions like fear and anger in the reader or listener. If you’re emotional, you’re not thinking rationally and are more susceptible to falling for fake news.

6. Reiteration: the illusory truth effect.

The illusory truth effect refers to the phenomenon in which the more we have been exposed to certain information, the more likely we are to believe that information. Earlier in this post, I mentioned that flip flops had been reported to cause cancer. If you have never been exposed to this information before, its very mention here is the second time you’ve encountered it. The more you read about flip flops and cancer, the stronger the link between the two becomes in your head. Of course, there is no causal relationship between the two. However, debunking isn’t necessarily a helpful solution.

 

7. Social pressure.

The final reason why people fall for fake news is kind of a big one with respect to its impact as well as the various subtopics it covers. One of the best-selling books of all-time, How to Make Friends and Influence People (Carnegie, 1936), was perhaps so successful because people recognize the importance of social influence and, likewise, social pressure. When you think about it, the mechanisms of such pressure are quite simplistic with respect to how it works within social media: if you say something that someone doesn’t like, they might unfriend you; if it’s something they really don’t like, they might report you; the more you have in terms of friends, followers, likes, views or clicks, the more influence you and your (signaled) values have.