Cyber Awareness - Stage 6 Comp - Changing Technology - Comprehension Pack.pdf

STAGE 6 Unit focus: Cyber Awareness Text focus: Information Text Changing Technlogy When your parents when to school, there likely was no Internet at home. Computers were just starting to become...

STAGE 6 Unit focus: Cyber Awareness Text focus: Information Text Changing Technlogy When your parents when to school, there likely was no Internet at home. Computers were just starting to become commonplace, and they might have been connected to the Internet at school. If they were, there wasn’t much to look at. One of the reasons that staying safe online is so hard is because technology changes at such a rapid pace. As children, you probably know more about the technology you are using than your parents, which isn’t like most other things in life! This means that they are o en trying to catch up to keep you safe. When the Internet first came into people’s houses, it was very slow. You definitely couldn’t use it on mobile phones, so there was no way to stay connected all of the time. In fact, you could only connect to a computer, and it disconnected every hour! It was so slow that a single photo might take over a minute to load! Videos weren’t even worth bothering with for most people. Fast Internet and WiFi didn’t really come into people’s homes until the 2000s. By 2007, just over half of the UK had access to broadband, which meant their Internet connection was fast enough to watch videos and play online games. The first Internet connection for phones was called 3G and launched in 2003. Like all new technology, both broadband and 3G were prohibitively expensive to begin with. They didn’t become commonplace until about 15 years ago. Even though Facebook launched in 2004 and YouTube in 2005, social media didn’t really take off for most people until a er 2010. The last ten years have been the period in which the Internet has really become essential to people’s lives. This was recognised by the UK government in 2015 when broadband was recognised as a “utility”. Other utilities include water, gas and electricity, and are deemed to be essentials for life. That means that providers have to do everything they can to ensure everybody has access to them. A When the global COVID pandemic hit in 2020, the Internet took on a new ding ro Rea und all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed e um C u r r ic ul Th http://www.literacyshedplus.com level of importance. People were forced to work and school from home. Video calling became the new normal, and once again, we had to adapt quickly to a changing world. It also highlighted the fact that there were still a lot of people in the UK who didn’t have access to high-speed connections. As we head into the future, it’s hard to predict where online technology will go. We can already connect nearly every device in our house, meaning that everything from a kettle to the lights can be controlled over the Internet. Fridges can monitor what you eat and reorder food as you run out. There’s no doubt that clever engineers will find new ways to make our lives more efficient, but it’s important to remember that each new wave of technology brings its own risks. When you consider that everything you take for granted, from online gaming to WhatsApp and TikTok, only came about within your lifetime, it’s no wonder that we are still catching up. Technology is evolving more quickly than we can evolve to use it safely. RETRIEVAL FOCUS 1. When was YouTube created? 2. When did half of the UK have access to fast Internet? 3. What was the name of the first mobile phone Internet access? 4. What happened in 2020 that made the Internet even more important? 5. Did your grandparents have access to the Internet at school? VIPERS QUESTIONS E What is the general message behind this text? S Why is it hard for people to keep up with the latest technology? S Why was broadband being classed as a “utility” significant? V What does the phrase “prohibitively expensive” mean? V Find and copy a word that means “made clear”. all resources ©2023 Literacy Shed http://www.literacyshedplus.com