15 years of the World Wide Web

Hello, I'm Amber, and you're listening to bbclearningenglish.com.
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　　Today, since we are a website, we join in celebrations for the 15  birthday of
　　the World Wide Web!
　　The World Wide Web has changed the lifestyle and working environment of
　　people all over the world. In this programme, we listen to a short interview
　　about how the internet has changed our lives.
　　Ian Pearson is a futurologist - he studies 'futurology'. He's concerned with
　　trying to say correctly what will happen in the future. In the first part of his
　　interview, Ian Pearson lists both good things and bad things about the internet.
　　Can you catch any of these?
　　And he begins by saying that he does not believe the World Wide Web has
　　made our lives completely happy, or blissful. And he uses an unusual
　　expression - using the prefix 'cyber' - to describe the condition of being made
　　extremely happy by the internet! What is this unusual expression? Cyber –
　　what?
　　Ian Pearson
　　'I don't believe in cyber bliss. I think that the future is very much the same as today, where
　　you've got good things and bad things, you know, we've got email but we've got junk mail
　　along side. In the future, we'll have lots of new ways of doing things, but we'll have some
　　misuse as well. It's never going to be Utopia, but, you know, if we get it right, it won't be hell
　　either.'
　　Amber:  Did you catch it? Ian Pearson says he doesn't believe in 'cyber bliss' –
　　'cyber' means 'relating to computers, especially to messages and
　　information on the internet', and 'bliss' means 'perfect happiness' or
　　'enjoyment'. Cyber bliss. And he says the positive things about the internet
　　are 'email' and that in the future 'we'll have lots of new ways of doing
　　things'. However, the negative things are 'junk mail' and future 'misuse' of
　　the internet. When you listen again, notice how Ian Pearson balances his
　　sentences to list 'good things and bad things'.
　　Also, at the end of this extract, Ian Pearson uses two terms to describe how
　　the internet will never be perfect, but if we 'get it right', and work to
　　improve the World Wide Web, it won't be a harmful or unpleasant thing
　　either. Can you catch either of these two terms, describing two completely
　　opposite situations?
　　Ian Pearson
　　'I don't believe in cyber bliss. I think that the future is very much the same as today, where
　　you've got good things and bad things, you know, we've got email but we've got junk mail
　　along side. In the future, we'll have lots of new ways of doing things, but we'll have some
　　misuse as well. It's never going to be Utopia, but, you know, if we get it right, it won't be hell
　　either.'
　　Amber:   'It's never going to be Utopia, but, you know, if we get it right, it won't be
　　hell either.' 'Utopia' is an imaginary perfect world where everyone is
　　happy. If a situation, experience or place is very unpleasant, an informal
　　word to describe it is 'hell'. 'It's never going to be Utopia, but, you know, if
　　we get it right, it won't be hell either.'
　　Next, Ian Pearson suggests we can celebrate certain features of the World
　　Wide Web – after all, not many of us would like to go back to 1990 and live
　　without email and text messaging! And generally, technology does help us
　　to be productive with our lives and to organise them! Can you catch the
　　expression he uses to say that he doesn't want to go back in time to a world
　　without the World Wide Web?
　　Ian Pearson
　　'I certainly wouldn't want to wind the clock back. I don't think very many people would.
　　There's a battle between people who want to use these things to make our lives better and
　　people who want to, basically, be parasitic on all of that to make money by making our lives
　　misery. You know, people are sent junk mail and stuff like that. We have to find ways of
　　dealing with those people and still allow the benefits to come through to people that want to
　　use it for good things.'
　　Amber:  Ian Pearson says: 'I certainly wouldn't want to wind the clock back'. This is
　　an informal way of saying that you don't want to go back to a previous
　　situation. 'I certainly wouldn't want to wind the clock back'.
　　Ian Pearson also says there's now 'a battle', a fight, between people who use
　　the internet for good and those 'parasitic' people who use the internet for
　　bad purposes. If you say someone is 'parasitic', you mean they don't work
　　and depend on other people instead. And Ian Pearson says such people are
　　'making our lives a misery' – another useful informal expression. Listen
　　again.