South Korea has the world's fastest average broadband speeds on the internet. I recently read an online story of someone who did a study in South Korea, often called the most wired society. This person wanted to know if South Korean families could live without the web for 2 weeks. Most families contacted would not participate in the study because it would interfere with their online businesses, children's online homework assignments, or daily internet habits. People wanted "news, views, and social networks."


But finally, two South Korean families from the Kukdong Riverside Apartments ( pictured ) volunteered to try and live without the web for 2 weeks. One family ( the Kims ) has two teenage sons, one of whom is a talented computer programmer who spends up to 6 hours a day online everyday. The other family ( The Yangs ) are a family with younger sons, but who are, nonetheless, just as dependent on the web. Most of the TV channels that the two boys enjoy are piped into the home over the internet. And their mother, Jung-A, admits to a two-hour-a-day web browsing habit.


Jung-A said one inconvenience was having to go to the grocery store, as she usually does her shopping online. She's not alone, as in 2008, South Korean e-commerce reached $600bn. Another inconvenience was not being able to do taxes and get benefit payments online. One parent said she always contacts school mothers thru a blog, but now must meet them in the real world. So, she's had to use her phone and contact everyone, one by one, much more timely than a one-time blog post.


As the week progressed, the two families reported a psychological reaction to being cut off from the web. They talked about a feeling of isolation. In a recent survey, 68% of South Koreans get their news from the internet, compared to 32% who still read the newspapers.


And the positive side? Freed from their computers, both participating groups said they spent more time with their families. One son was practicing piano more, books were being read, and board games had been rediscovered. For the first time in a long time, one mother was finding the whole family dressed and ready for breakfast in the morning. "Normally Sung-jun would be in bed after playing internet games all night. It's been a long time since I've seen him up this early," she tells me.


And then, with sighs of relief all round, the brief experiment was over. As promised, the modems were returned.

Of course, seven days without the internet was never really going to be too much of an ordeal. But it has delivered our families some surprises and, they all admit, shown them just how much they have come to rely on the web. The Yangs say they will change their behaviour as a result. "After finishing my morning chores, I used to spend between two and three hours online," Jung-a tells me. "That's time spent alone. But, during the experiment I've even had the time to drink tea with neighbours, so I'm going to regulate time spent online from now on." But would either of the families consider giving it up for good? "It would be the same as asking if you could cut off my electricity for a week," Cho Hye-sook laughs.




"Lose the internet for another seven days? It's a real 'No thank you,' I'm afraid. I don't want to go through this again."


▼▽▼▼【講師】Rob先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━

・【Computer commands applied to real life】2010.03.12 (Fri)

We have a phrase in English, "when it rains it pours." This means when something bad happens (like rain) a bunch of bad things happen (like it pouring, pouring means raining really heavily). Or like that bad things always happen together at the same time so as to maximize your emotional distress. Anyway, two pretty major traumatic things just recently happened in my family at basically the same time, and also something very personally trying also happened at the same time. So three pretty big things have happened within the past like... 2 or 3 weeks. Three isn't a very big number in and of itself, but when considering the magnitude of each three, it becomes actually quite a large number. Then, you could add the fact that I'm planning a wedding in another country. This is not meant to be me having my own pity party; I just wanted to paint the picture for you.


So needless to say, I've been kind of stressed lately. I think that normally I'm kind of a stressed person anyway actually. I'm not sure if I give that impression, but I do tend to keep things kind of bottled up. So I want to say two things about this time of stress.


First, I've actually been pretty active in trying to release my stress. In my special class on Thursday I've recently talked about both laughing and crying. They were really interesting topics for me. We learned that laughing actually creates chemicals that fight against and reduce stress chemicals, and that crying just pushes them straight out of your body through your tears. So what have I been doing? I've been trying to laugh more by watching a funny TV show I like. I've also recently read about laughter yoga. It's based on the idea that laughter is majorly beneficial to your body and also that your body doesn't know the difference between real laughter and fake laughter. (Fake laughter still produces those good stress fighting chemicals). This morning in particular was a really rough morning for me. So before I came to work I tried this laughter yoga out for the first time. I felt pretty ridiculous, but my head did seem to feel a little better afterward. And then I've also been much less restraintive about crying if the feeling comes. There are studies that show that people who are less open about crying can have a higher risk heart disease, high blood pressure, the occurrence of ulcers, and so on. I guess I should also mention that I've tried talking about these things with others instead of keeping them bottled up as I normally do.


Second, this time of difficulty for my family has actually brought us a lot closer. It's opened up some communication (not that we were particularly bad at communicating before), and I think us trying to be there for each other really reaffirms the love we share. So while this time has sucked pretty bad, it's also been kind of heartwarming.


You're all really seeing the feminine side of me today... all this talk about crying and heartwarming stuff... I'm making myself gag. So yes, why am I talking about these rather personal things?


Well, I guess I just wanted to share these two things I've been learning. Or three things. First, there are natural ways to reduce stress (alcohol not being one of them, alcohol can actually add to stress chemically). Second, being open about stuff is better than not. I've actually read that the reason male suicide rates are so much higher than female rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate) is that women are more open about issues which leads to resolution and lower stress, whereas men have difficulty communicating personal things and never find resolution and their stress only increases. Third, family is really important. More important than work or status or money. I actually don't have a lot of money or status, and I've never put my work above practically anything personal, but I don't think it's something Japan understands.


Basically, everyone experiences times of stress, and if my stress fighting methods can be helpful to anyone then they're worth sharing. Especially the parts about being open and family being important, those are not things I've personally seen a lot of in Japan. Though family being important isn't really a stress fighting method... Of course there are many other ways of dealing with stress, like exercising or meditating, I just thought these might be some of the overlooked ones :)

▼▽▼▼【講師】Amberly先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━
・【the things we say.】2010.03.10 (Wed)

I was awful at Science when I studied it at school. I think I came bottom of my class in a couple of exams. I didn't even know how to light a Bunsen burner until I was about fifteen. I think part of the problem was that my Dad was a research scientist. Some of my teachers even knew him so they expected me to have the same talents. When they realized that I was useless at science they thought I was a bit stupid.

Maybe because of all this past trauma, I am interested in science these days. There is so much that I still want to learn and figure out. To be honest, I'm not too interested in understanding science in all its details, I just want to pick and choose topics that interest me such as astronomy and, more recently, anthropology.

Anthropology is the study of the human race and its origins. I really love to read about our ancestors. I recently read a book that said all the problems associated with society can be traced back to Neolithic revolution (when humans changed from hunter-gatherers to farmers). Such a change meant that humans became more competitive over land and property. The first stages of capitalism and materialism had begun- those that had land or property had power.

Some anthropologists even suggest that we need to get in touch with our ancestral DNA and rediscover our relationship with nature. I can partly understand this way of thinking-humans have exploited and destroyed nature for so long- but I can't see any of us suddenly taking off our clothes, becoming like Homo Erectus and gathering in a band to scavenge animal carcasses or pick berries. Do you want to do that? No, me neither.

However, there are times when I am breathing in the spring air or looking at the moon or a gorgeous sunset and I imagine our ancestors doing much the same thousands of years ago. If I met the ancient Mr. Gardner, I'm sure we wouldn't share much in common except that appreciation of the beauty of nature. Sometimes I think it's really important to consider where we came from and, just as importantly, where we are going.

▼▽▼▼【講師】Anthony先生のバックナンバー━━━━━━━━ ・【2010】2010.03.05 (Fri)

こんにちは、KAPLAN事務局です。
今日はTOEFL iBT対策セミナーのご案内です。

多くの方が不安を抱くTOEFL iBT...。
「TOEFL iBTはどのようなテストなのか。」
「英語力に自信はないが、TOEFL iBTが必要だ。」
「どうやって勉強したらいいのか分からない...。」
そのような皆さんの不安や悩みを解消するためのセミナーです。

当セミナーの担当講師は、日本で皆さまと同じように英語教育を受けながらもTOEFL対策を学びアメリカの大学院に留学した経験を持つ日本人講師です。日本人学習者が苦手とする点や弱点克服の勉強法にも熟知していますので、TOEFL対策を丁寧にきめ細かくご説明いたします。

このセミナーからできるだけ多くを吸収していただき、TOEFLiBTのスコア・アップ、さらには留学実現＆成功に向けて、最高のスタートを切って下さい！

■セミナー概要■

第１部＜セミナー あるいは 「はじめてのTOEFL iBT対策コース」授業に体験参加＞
16:30-18:00
・TOEFL® iBT対策のご説明

第２部＜コース説明＞
18:00-18:30
・当日のまとめや、「はじめてのTOEFL iBT対策コース」以外にも、それぞれの実力と進度に対応した各種コースについてもご説明します。

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