Learn 62 Everyday English Expressions In ONE NEWS ARTICLE

do you know what the expression popcorn brain means have you heard that before this is very trendy in the media and social media right now today we'll review an article together and you'll learn what popcorn brain is and you'll learn 62 everyday English Expressions that you can add to your vocabulary welcome back to j4 English of course I'm Jennifer now let's get started what is popcorn brain this article defines it as the shift in attention of social media users so shifting means changing from one thing to another as you can see in the image this

man's brain is popcorn my favorite snack and we have all the different social media icons so you can imagine his brain is going from Instagram to Facebook to YouTube or to any other social media platform so that's popcorn brain a term that is new to me as well I had never heard this term before this article have you heard of it and this article says social media could be ruining our attention span your attention span so one's attention span with the possessive your attention span is how long you are able to pay attention to concentrate

on one task notice those preposition changes you concentrate on something right now your or concentrating on this lesson right but you pay attention to something or someone you're paying attention to this lesson you're also paying attention to me as your teacher so do you think you can pay attention to this entire lesson without switching to other social media or other tasks if you can then maybe you don't have popcorn brains so put I can I can I know you can pay attention to this whole lesson put I can in the comments now notice how it

says ruining our attention span ruin is already a very strong word repeat after me for pronunciation ruin so notice there's two syllables ruin ruin and then you have your ing ruining ruining now ruin is already quite a strong verb but could use the verb destroying which sounds even stronger social media could be destroying our attention span don't worry about taking notes because I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF you can find the link in the description now let's continue with our lesson experts are warning of a new medical issue caused by excessive scrolling on

social media so of course to scroll you know what that is that's what I'm doing right now on the screen I'm scrolling now notice this adjective here excessive excessive means too much so it's more than you want or more than you need so it has a negative sound to it and repeat after me for pronunciation excessive excessive you could say her comments were excessive so she provided a lot of comments but because I used the word excessive it means too much so it has a negative sound to it but if I said her comments were

extensive notice completely different word different pronunciation the meaning here is a wide range but this has a more neutral sound to it so it sounds like she provided many comments but they were potentially positive potentially negative we don't know we need more information but the word excessive is always negative let's review this pronunciation repeat after me excessive extensive one more time excessive extensive let's continue the issue the issue being scrolling on social media excessive scrolling the issue has been dumbed popcorn brain a term used to describe the shifting attention of social media users and that's

exactly the definition I use at the top because remember I have never heard this term before so I'm learning at the same time as you now when something is dubbed something it means it's called it it's referred to as we often use this for terminology or definitions now that you know about popcorn brain a little bit more let's do a survey let's do a poll this affects me so this issue being popcorn brain affects me now notice the verb is aect the noun is affect with a e aect but the verb is aect and you

need that as because it's in the present simple and this is singular now as your choice you can say this greatly affects me somewhat slightly or doesn't affect me at all now you can write in the full term or you can do 1 2 3 4 so we'll do a quick poll share your answer 1 2 3 4 share it in the comments are you enjoying this lesson if you are then I want to tell you about the finally fluent Academy this is my premium training program where we study native English speakers from TV the

movies YouTube and the news so you can improve your listening skills of fast English expand your vocabulary with natural expressions and learn Advanced grammar easily plus you'll have me as your personal coach you can look in the description for the link to learn more or you can go to my website and click on finally fluent Academy now let's continue with our lesson a study published in nature Communications this is the name of a magazine or a journal and you publish something in so you publish a study in and then the name of it in 2019

so again you need the preposition in for a year you can say 2019 or 2019 2019 is more common it's easier to say 2019 revealed that people's Collective attention spans now notice there's an s on on here attention spans do you know why because people is the plural of person so one person and two people so if it were two or more people it's my attention span your attention span so together the attention spans are plural and remember you need that possessive because it's one's attention span and using the word Collective means that you're referring

to all of the attention spans as one group so you're not looking at them individually it's seeing them as a whole and because we have a plural here this would represent the subject they that's why we have are they are becoming increasingly shorter due to the rapid consumption of social media increasing means more and more but over time so it's not happening at once it's a little bit and a little bit and a little bit over time increasingly shorter due to this is another way of saying because of so again notice that preposition change due

to something the something is the rapid consumption of social media what does popcorn brain mean well we talked about this already so let's learn more more popcorn brain refers to the tendency for our attention to shift and jump from one thing to another quickly just like the kernels in a popcorn bag whizzing inside let's look at the tendency for in this case the tendency for something our attention to shift we talked about that to move from one thing to another jump also means to move but of course you have that visual of of someone jumping

and then shifting you just don't have that visual of in the air but both of them mean to move to one thing to another now the tendency for means the likeliness of so our brains are very likely our brains naturally shift and jump this is very commonly used you might say she has a tendency to be late this means it's likely that she's late she's usually late now this is a tendency that's the noun form you can use the verb which is also very common the verb is to tend to do something so she tends

to be late she tends to be late is a same as she has a tendency to be late so here you have have the kernels this is a popcorn kernel is the corn before it becomes popcorn so the kernels in a popcorn bag you can imagine if you put a bag of popcorn in the microwave or on the stove the kernels are whizzing inside they're moving around very quickly but very erratically as well they're going all over the place so you can have that image with your attention span or the thoughts in your mind to

go all over the place so that's where the name popcorn brain comes from which is a pretty good name in my opinion if you agree with my opinion you could say the name popcorn brain the name the term the definition the name is spoton to be spoton this is an expression that means completely accurate so the image of popcorn kernels whizzing around is completely accurate about our attention spans also whizzing around so if you agree you can say spoton that's spoton the name is spoton just remember this is an expression to be spot on let's

continue although not an official medical condition your doctor would not say to you I am diagnosing you as having popcorn brain that's what it means is not an official medical condition it's not something a doctor would officially diagnose you as having it describes a pattern of behavior which induces dopamine the reward chemical in the brain in this context induce means to cause so this pattern of behavior the shifting of our attention causes dopamine which is a reward chemical it makes you feel good in the brain now although this is used to have a contrast between

two ideas idea one this is not a medical condition an official medical condition idea two it tells you what this condition does so rather than having these as two separate sentences we can combine the sentences together by using although now this is commonly use also when there's more of a contrast between the ideas for example although it was difficult I concentrated on this lesson from start to finish or I paid attention to remember concentrate on pay attention to both are verbs so you need to conjugate your verbs uh concentrate is a regular Ed verb pay

is an irregular verb you change the spelling paid but the spelling is irregular but it's still an ed you just change the y d to i d paid attention to this lesson from start to finish this is another way of saying the entire the whole lesson but it emphasizes it more from start to finish so the whole lesson from start to finish which means you don't have popcorn brain congratulations so the contrast here is it was difficult I did it so that's the contrast using although and then we can turn two sentences into one let's

continue according to research by psychologist Gloria Mark so notice the pronunciation here Sai so there's no p in the pronunciation psychologist psychologist and this is your syllable stress psychologist repeat after me psychologist Gloria Mark and notice this preposition it's according to someone or something in this case it's research which is a something according to research now if we know that the research is by Gloria Mark we could say according to Gloria Mark according to mark because it's very commonly used just to say their last name according to research by psychologist Gloria Mark over the past

two decades you could say past or last in this case and there's no difference the past two decades one decade is 10 years so two decades is 20 years of course the average attention span fan declined to around 47 seconds so if that's true it means most people didn't even finish page one of this lesson but you're still here so congratulations to you you have an amazing attention span congratulations so the average attention span declined this means decrease to around approximately 47 seconds you could also say about 47 seconds which is a casual but not

slang and it still sounds professional it's just a more casual Choice compared to approximately which sounds slightly more formal so you have three choices which are all commonly used by native speakers let's keep going because you have an amazing attention span some people have been expressing concern that this condition what's the condition popcorn brain although not an official medical condition this condition dubbed called popcorn brain is becoming more present in people as social media becomes more fast-paced with its constant streams of information and algorithms tailored to keep you scrolling remember that information is a collect

Ive noun so you don't add an S to it you can say thanks for all the all the sounds like there's a lot it sounds like a plural word but information is always singular thanks for all the information you shared so much information now if you wanted to use a noun where you can specify the plural you could change information to the word facts or D details or some other word choice which can have a singular or plural and in that case because you had all the you need to add that s you can only

use a plural modifier all thee if it's a collective noun thanks for all the information thanks for all the facts let's look at tailor and algorithms tailored to keep you scrolling this is a verb to tailor and you tailor something in this case algorithms when you tailor something it means you design it or customize it for a specific purpose so algorithms designed to keep you scrolling customized to keep you scrolling now this is important because someone could give you advice and say you need to tailor your CV you need to design or customize your CV

to the job posting so if you're applying to two different jobs you need to submit two totally different CVS to match those jobs let's continue There are some things you can do to remedy the issue remedy means improve the issue or to help solve to help improve and you remedy a problem an issue a situation you can do to remedy the issue again the issue being popcorn brain and help return your attention span to normal some of these things include so the things you can do to remedy popcorn brain to return your attention span to

normal limiting social media use and swapping it for a less overstimulating task so swapping it means to change it for so here you have your phone with all your social media and here let's say you have a book or sewing needles or a pen and pad of paper and so you can swap scrolling on your phone for drawing in your book your notepad with your pen reading or whatever other activity it is you can swap it so change it for something else and notice how they say a less overstimulating task so if something stimulate stimulates

you it means it causes a lot of activity so that's why I gave examples sewing or drawing or reading something that causes less activity so it says a less overstimulating task some other remedies now notice here to remedy is a verb but you can say remedies there are some remedies for this problem there are some remedies for popcorn brain so remedies as the noun form would be Solutions so we already reviewed one remedy one solution the noun form you can swap it swap your phone for sewing noodles or a notebook other remedies other Solutions meditating

as you can imagine a less stimulating task or exercising which can be quite stimulating for your body but I guess not stimulating for your mind and we're talking about attention span taking regular breaks and quitting multitasking so you can focus on one thing at at a time when you multitask hopefully you're not multitasking right now if you're multitasking it means as you're watching this lesson you're checking your emails you're responding to an email you're posting something on social media you're liking a comment you're doing your grocery list so you're doing different tasks at once multiple

tasks at once and notice here that you take a break I hear a lot of direct translations such as make a pause or make a break or make a stop but it's take a break when you take a break it means you temporarily stop an activity to rest but the expression in English is take a break it's not make a pause make a rest it's take a break I could say feel free to hit pause now in this case pause represents the pause button on your player controls so press play press pause and hit means

to press with intention feel free to hit pause and take a break so maybe you go have a cup of tea or exercise or something like that and then come back to this lesson when you feel refreshed so so remember in English it's take a break take a break now here they don't have a because break has an S on it and you don't use an article with a plural noun taking regular breaks and quitting multitasking so you can focus on one thing at a time so these are the potential remedies Solutions so the things

that will help improve it and they're things they're nouns let's continue deleting all forms of media from your phone may not be necessary so here notice we start with a Jaren expression so this is your Jaren verb it's the verb in ining and it represents the subject of your sentence and we use this for General statements deleting all forms of your media of media from your phone may not be necessary but notice if they use this modal verb and say may not be necessary there's also a possibility that it may be necessary because May represents

it's possible there's a chance but there's also a chance it may be necessary so it's not a very strong modal choice if you wanted to say the same thing more forcefully you would delete the modal and just use the verb to be deleting all forms of media from your phone isn't necessary this means you do not have to do it whereas if you say may not be necessary it means there's a 50% chance you have to a 50% chance you don't have to but maintaining balance is crucial crucial means extremely important it's useful to have

alternatives for very common words in your vocabulary you don't need alter alternatives for all words but ones that are commonly used like important memorize 3 to five synonyms so you have Variety in your vocabulary here are some options for you of course crucial the first one repeat after me crucial essential critical pivotal imperative and you can choose ones based on which ones you like based on which ones are easy to pronounce which ones are easy to remember because they all have the same meaning so you can start with three that you like from this list

and that's the end of our article so now I'll read the article again and I want you to practice your pronunciation to Shadow my pronunciation as we read what is popcorn brain social media could be ruining our attention span fan experts are warning of a new medical issue caused by excessive scrolling on social media the issue has been dubbed popcorn brain a term used to describe the shifting attention of social media users a study published in nature Communications in 2019 revealed that people's Collective attention spans are becoming increasingly shorter due to the rapid consumption of

social media what does popcorn brain mean popcorn brain refers to the tendency for our ATT ention to shift and jump from one thing to another quickly just like the colonels in a popcorn bag whizzing inside although not an official medical condition it describes a pattern of behavior which induces dopamine the reward chemical in the brain according to research by psychologist Gloria Mark over the past two decades the average attention span declined to around 47 seconds some people have been expressing concern that this condition is becoming more present in people as social media becomes more fast-paced

with his constant streams of information and algorithms tailored to keep you scrolling there are some things you can do to remedy the issue and help return your attention span to normal some of these things include limiting social media use and swapping it for a less overstimulating task meditating or exercising taking regular breaks and quitting multitasking so you can focus on one thing at a time deleting all forms of media from from your phone may not be necessary but maintaining balance is crucial do you want me to make more lessons just like this if you do

put yes yes yes put yes yes yes yes yes yes in the comments below and of course make sure you like this lesson share it with your friends and subscribe so you're notified every time I post a new lesson and you can get this free speaking guide where I share six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently you can click here to download it or look for the link in the description and you can keep expanding your vocabul with this lesson right now