EJC 2023 JC1 MYE P2 Insert (8881)

EUNOIA JUNIOR COLLEGE JC1 Mid-Year Examination 2023 General Certificate of Education Advanced Level Higher 1 GENERAL PAPER Paper 2 INSERT 8881/02 25 May 2023 1 hour 30 minutes READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS FIRST This Insert contains the passages for comprehension. This document consists of 4 printed pages.

2 Passage 1. Noreena Hertz writes about the negative impact of social media on society. 1 Two hundred twenty -one; t hat is the number of times we check our phones on average, daily. This adds up to three hours and fifteen minutes of average daily use, almost 1,200 hours a year. While we know that this is not good for us, the trouble is, resisting the urge to pick up our phones takes a level of commitment and willpower that many of us struggle to find. This is because of the extent to which we are addicted to our phones and social media platforms are to blame. 5 2 Like slot machines, social media platforms have been consciously designed to keep us constantly scrolling, watching, liking, and refreshing in the hope of finding affirmation, confidence boosts and even love. Every serif, every screen layout, every barely perceptible animation, and every pixel has been actively configured to keep us hooked. 10 3 Beyond tethering us to our devices, social media is also making the world more hostile, less empathetic, and less kind – all of which is taking a significant toll on our collective well-being. While social media platforms do enable us to share moments of h appiness, their design has also made them conducive to some of the worst elements of human nature: abuse, bullying and racism. All these behaviours are on the rise. In 2018, over half of adult internet users in the UK reported having seen hateful content online, a 6 percent increase from the year before. 15 4 Of course, hatred and abuse are not new phenomen a. The difference lies in the unprecedented scale at which social media is pumping such toxicity into our lives. It also rewards users for doing so. Each retweet we get provides us with a dopamine hit, the same neurotransmitter associated with heroin. And w hat kinds of posts typically generates the most retweets? The most outlandish, extreme, and hateful ones. 20 5 While it is unlikely that stimulating such toxic behaviour is the intention of the platform creators, it is something they tolerate for the simple fact that outrage and anger (however dangerous and polarising) are better for business. They keep traffic high, increasing the likely number of ad clicks, which translates to revenue. This is the amorality of the unregulated market in action. 25 6 7 It is not only adults who are affected by a design ethic that both incentivi ses us to produce divisive messages and enables us to so easily find community in hate. For children, social media has also become home to bullying on a distressing sca