let's go live hello students I'm Robin Shaw please let me know if you can see me and hear me I hope my mic is working okay today you'll notice my background is different today this is my or my room I don't have the whiteboard in my room anymore usually I use the whiteboard for my background not today you get to see what's behind me which is a closet and books and this is my money money from other countries let's see who's in the chat we have Leila hello happy 2020 22 and we have Farida nice to see you and we have Dewey and that's it where's all the students let's go hunting maybe I'm just gonna post a few other places quickly to get some action here get the people into the room I know Dewey Leila and Frida you're excellent students but and I would be happy to teach just the three of you but I'm gonna try and get a few more students into the into the classroom because you I know you have your questions but we can learn from other student questions too all right here we go I'm gonna post here I should have done this before the lesson but I guess you know I was too busy all right and let's post it in Facebook group too I'm not very active in Facebook you know I wish I had more time in the day to interact with students I love interacting with students but I just cannot get the time and let's post there that should bring in a few more students okay let's see CB is here now you're late CB so you get minus one point on your final report card I'm gonna send the final report card to your mother everything looks amazing behind well it's not amazing it's just my room I didn't prepare this this is just naturally how it looks Bray Lena hello Kovino hello yeah I remember you of course you're the young guy you're my youngest student Michel bonjour salut my French is terrible I really am eager to travel again to come see Leila and in Saudi Arabia and come see Michel in France that's that's my top dream right now do we if Rita if you guys are welcoming I will visit your country too that is my top dream in my life to be able to see you face-to-face and sleep Walker hello happy New Year happy happy happy New Year New Year's Eve I did nothing I just prepared scripts I'm gonna start filming videos tomorrow for January-February I'm filming a lot of videos for shot English I got a lot of new excellent teachers it's exciting I'm gonna be busy for January-February getting those videos made but and I gotta spend a lot of money wow I gotta spend about I'm gonna tell you guys here $10,000 to get new videos made in studio it's gonna be expensive okay let's let's see we guys got questions Leila has a question of course let's see if we got the whiteboard ready my whiteboard my digital whiteboard get that set up this was last week's question let's get rid of that all right now I'm ready now I'm ready for what you have lost the chat this is the chat okay back here all right now I'm ready sorry all right so the questions which one is correct let's put that up on the board okay now I'm slowly getting organized here which one is correct his English is not as good as mine his English is not good as mine while you're doing a comparison and let's just clear this up and let's make that a question so Leila I think your level you know the answer when we're doing a comparison we need as and as so this one is correct this top one his English is not as good as mine or my English so this is correct now this one his English is not good as mine this is wrong all right so we need that as as good as as tall as for a comparison of similar things so let's just make a new so this is wrong let's make a new sentence he is as tall as me she is as poor as me the cat is as friendly as the dog all right in each case we need that as as for comparison okay cb what is your favorite quotes cb I'm not really inspirational person so you put s I'm gonna fix your question though you put s here which means plural so we got to check this b-verb so it should be what are your favorite quotes so quotes are usually inspirational inspirational they're trying to encourage you they're trying to be positive they're trying to inspire you to give you the energy to do something so quotes are usually inspirational and I don't really I'm not a fan of inspirational quotes I don't really I always see them on Instagram and Facebook but I'm really I usually don't care about inspirational quotes so what is my fate what are your favorite quotes or what is your favorite quote nothing comes to mind because I don't really follow that so cb why don't you tell me your favorite quote pretty you would I would really love if you come to Kuwait to see me I would Kuwait that's a great place and Michelle you're welcome yeah good Michelle I hope to be there and Kavinu sir if you can please put my videos into your WhatsApp group I'd like to give others an opportunity to watch my videos well Kavinu I don't advertise I don't advertise my videos in the WhatsApp group the WhatsApp group is just for practice so I don't really do any marketing there I didn't even usually Layla posts my videos but I don't post my videos in the WhatsApp group so Kavinu I don't market in the WhatsApp group usually I try to keep that just for speaking practicing things like that alright sleep sleepwalker has okay I saw your message Layla sleepwalker has a question here I remembered about this weekend fondly okay interesting I always think of you fondly do I use fondly correctly yes I remember about this weekend fondly or this is the premier let's say that weekend if we're talking about the past something in the past because you have the ED here something in the past I remembered about that weekend in the past we wouldn't say this weekend because that's more of a upcoming in the future so I remembered about that weekend fondly so use a fondly correctly but this should be a that and the second sentence I always think of you fondly looks great great way to use it so for number two are you talking about me sleepwalker I hope you're talking about me Layla even while speaking we can't say for example he is as good as mine he is as good he is well this is a different sentence he is as good as me we would say we can say yeah when you're speaking we can say he's he is as good as me at tennis for example or English he is he's well we if we're speaking let's use a contraction he's as good as me at English you can say that I can't believe her she always lies to me this is a conversation I can't believe her she always lies to me this time she tells the truth just take my words for it take my word for it that's usually the expression take my word for it I don't know if I use take okay yeah so yeah don't put the S the the expression is it's the idiom take my word for it it's an idiom we cannot put words we just use word as singular take my word for me when it me just take my word for it means trust me take my word for it that means trust me that's the idiom that means trust me you cannot change it to take my words for it it's always take my word for it take my word for it trust me accounts help by VJ sir has a question let's put it up here sir please call me Robin what is you're gonna fix it here let's fix Robin what is the difference between fix up your question and you have your examples here so let's put a colon there shirt is washed and shirt has been washed okay you got two grammar forms so let's make this a better sentence this shirt is washed this shirt has been washed so what's the difference well the grammar is the different you're doing using two grammar forms so if you're using this one you know how can explain it when when we're using English grammar you can use different grammar forms to say the same thing right and you're doing that right now both of these sentence means the same thing technically they're a little bit different in the in the exact meaning of what you're trying to say but basically if you're talking in a conversation then it means the same thing so this this shirt is washed you're saying the shirt is clean it's washed and this shirt has been washed you're focusing more on the activity of washing the shirt but in both cases they mean the same thing this shirt is washed this shirt has been washed so it's two grammar ways it means the same thing this one would just be for focusing more on the timeline that it has been washed in the past so maybe the time is more of the focus here and the water or when when you're focusing that the shirt has been washed in a previous time and the focus here is just more of a statement of a fact but basically it's the same thing if you're on a test and you got to say exactly what what they're different what makes them different I would need a little more research and we comes in I want to know what are different using what is the difference so we just want to what is the difference what is the difference difference using words all right so what is the difference between the words big huge massive and how to use in a sentence all right well let's use a scale and I'm gonna add a few more words enormous massive huge big maybe massive is above enormous there's other words I don't have them all gigantic gigantic what else can we use so they're all adjectives to describe something that's very big so if we want to describe really big massive or enormous so if we talk about the earth our planet it's massive it's so big okay we would not say you would not say the turtle is massive turtles are small yeah you can have a big turtle but usually turtles are not massive the earth is a big thing it's massive the Sun is massive we could also describe maybe a headache oh I have a massive headache you just want to emphasize it's really really big headache so massive enormous also really big you know I could I could say like an elephant an elephant is enormous compared to a rabbit okay so the earth is massive an elephant is enormous compared to a rabbit would I say an elephant is massive probably not I would I would use enormous for an elephant or big gigantic maybe gigantic you know I don't know is it might be a little bigger than enormous so what's gigantic what's gigantic the tree in my yard is gigantic so the earth is massive so something really big that's gonna be top there the tree in my yard is gigantic so compared to other trees it's a really big tree an elephant is enormous can I say an elephant is massive not really you you can technically you can but native speakers don't usually say elephants are massive our elephants gigantic you can but I think enormous is more fitting for elephant and then we get to huge which is less definitely huge is less than massive gigantic enormous than huge it's just big it's like a really big and then big and there's also large just just those are the most common ones just to say you know an elephant is big big can be used for anything the earth is big that tree is big so they're more these ones are more general just used for anything to say it's it's big and then if you want to get specific massive gigantic enormous these are other adjectives to use to eat so I hope that helps you out and we could go down the list to large maybe average is middle and then small and then tiny and then minute minuscule I don't know how to spell that this looks like great school so if we you know there's other adjectives I didn't list them all but you got small tiny miniscule is like very very small so massive and miniscule miniscule is a little difficult to say how about every one repeat after me miniscule miniscule miniscule massive gigantic enormous huge big large average small tiny don't say teeny this is tiny miniscule all right I gotta move on to me I hope that answered your question and Layla has another dialogue a says how long have you worked at being a fireman B since I was 20 10 years ago I think this okay I think the second sentence means I was 20 or 10 years ago but I'm not sure what it means so since I was 20 10 years ago so that means now his age or her age is 30 so how long have you been a fireman or how long have you worked at being a fireman since I was 20 10 years ago so he could always he could say for 10 years but he for whatever reason wants to begin with since and put their age but you he could just say for 10 years teacher Robin give me suggest how I can make change from active voice become passive voice well I am an expert on this topic I would do it quickly so I mean you know you can't do it with every verb there's you know a lot of verbs you can do it so I kicked my dog so this is the active voice we have what we call the doer the person doing the action and that's also the subject and we have the receiver something is happening to that thing or person or animal so we have the doer first and then we have the receiver now this goes subject verb object this is your subject this is the verb kick and what are you gonna kick that's your object but let's not worry about that so when we want to make it passive we focus on the receiver what's happening to something so in this case we want to make it passive we have to focus on the receiver of the action which is the doc my doc now we want to take our verb which is kicked and we got to use the B verb here so we got to use M is our variation of that and in this case because this was past tense I kicked my dog we're gonna use past tense of B verb here past tense of the B verb is was so I kicked my dog my dog was kicked past participle was kicked you're always gonna have a B verb kicked and then by me so who did it by me now sometimes in the passive voice we don't put the doer so this is confusing point sometimes we don't put the doer we just we just say oh my dog was kicked but in today we're gonna put by me all right so that's a quick way of making passive voice very quickly different grammar form she she was cleaning her room so our can a continuous tense she was cleaning her room so again make it passive she is the doer what is she doing cleaning the what is getting the cleaning the room so well let's focus on the the receiver the room was was and then this is where it's tricky I can't go into detail we have cleaning the continuous form of the B verb the continuous form is being and past participle cleaned by her she was cleaning her room the room was being cleaned by her all right so we're using the same tense here I and she continuous okay that was a quick quick lesson about passive voice I hope that helps Leila could you please explain that expression after searching Robin said sorry I can't find the clear answer I guess you got on me this time does God on me no you beat you beat me no I'm not sure what you said could you please explain that expression after searching Robin said sorry I can't find the clear answer I guess you got maybe I want to say you got me maybe I said this you got me so you got me means you okay say this in easy words so we usually you made me fail it's not negative it's it's it's just for fun you say oh you got me you got me so you you made me to fail or not succeeded something in a light way it's not negative so so if someone asks a question and I cannot answer you know they ask me an English question and you know I'm the English teacher I'm supposed to know everything about English but sometimes people ask me a question and I don't know the answer I might say ah you got me so you made me fail in a more positive way kind of funny way because I'm supposed to know but I don't know okay so you heard that last week okay oh sleepwalker so which verbs can we also use with fondly well I don't know all the verbs so I'll just do a quick check there's many I don't really see a list so he welcomed me fondly that might be possible but usually as you already know we generally use that with remember fondly and I think of that person fondly I can't think of other verb there's probably some other verbs but not many not many that we use fondly with your right but I don't I can't sorry you got me I cannot think of all the verbs right now because I'm too old and my mind cannot carry all that information I would need to search but when I search I do not see a list of verbs connected with but the list will be short I don't see any list yeah it's not gonna be many verbs probably less than 10 probably less than five but I don't know Kovino sir could you please explain something about wh questions you know that's that's Kovino I'd like to help but that is maybe too big of a question for the live stream because you know we have what when where who why we can also include how is kind of the question form wh questions so I really don't have time to go through all of these and explain but I'll just write an example sentence what is it so what focusing more on a thing when is it focusing on time when is it where is it focusing on where I sit where is it focusing on location where where location who is it focusing on person why you know the reason the reason and how you know the how is what what's what's another word that means how I want to explain how with how so how how you know the the the events that make it happen what occurred to make it happen so I can't really go into all of these in detail just what focus on the thing or event when time where location who person why reason and how how did it happen okay Kovino that's all I can do if you have example sentences please tell me ladies is if I say his drawing is not good not as I just thought you you need not as good as mine is it oh is right you know it's wrong okay but is okay during chatting well yeah if you're if you if you're chatting you can say his drawing not good you know who cares about the grammar if you're chatting but I have to teach the correct way and the correct way is not as as good as mine so while speaking chatting there's no rules for chatting you can do anything you want with chatting hello Palavi you came in to say hi and maybe you're gone already I don't know Ravin pad Padvy hello and TIGERF ESD from Tamil hello welcome welcome welcome take out a little break here oh sleepwalker you caught me equals you got me yeah that can also mean you got me has many meetings I didn't go through them all yeah this is this is also possible you caught me you got me got God has many meetings and in this case yeah you caught me you catch me last week my brother challenged me to speak only in English for one hour and a half good then I did it good I only asked dictionary for I only asked this issue we don't say acid dictionary you I guess if you spoke to dictionary hey dictionary but usually we check I only checked the dictionary for we don't need to say for helping I know use your why you checked the dictionary so I only checked the dictionary for some words which I okay so we're talking about last week so we got to say didn't know what do you think okay well I think that's really good in in some families you know in some families and the raising children they'll go they'll make a schedule like this so I'll use Korean example so there's a Korean family or let's say there's a Korean woman and they married a Japanese man and these families are very interesting because they will make rules Monday when they speak to the kids only Korean Tuesday Korean Wednesday only Japanese Thursday only Japanese and then Friday Saturday Sunday only English so I I've seen families that make schedules like this so the schedule be on the wall and in that house on those days they only speak that language so these kids can grow up to be trilingual they speak three languages fluently so you're doing it an hour and a half that's excellent why not why not two hours why not three hours why not one day in your whole house everyone must speak English every Saturday for example I haven't seen you I haven't seen you for about one year I haven't seen you almost one year probably gonna stick for again I haven't seen you again we're gonna use for I haven't seen you again we're gonna use for look this is a nuance okay let's take a look I put the four in the wrong location for all right let's take a look I haven't seen you for about one year so about this could be 11 months it could be 13 months it's very close to 365 days so in this case 365 days is one year so I haven't seen you for about a year for about 365 days of course it might be 340 days or it might be 370 days about about I haven't seen you for almost one year so less than 365 days let's change the color so not more than 365 so an example might 350 days which is almost one year or 300 310 days which is almost one year but it's not not 370 days okay can't be that that would be over one year so we'll just put 360 less than 365 days I haven't seen you for around one year and I think about and around are gonna be the same so these two I'll just put as the same color and I haven't seen you for over one year so that's more than more than 365 days so that would be maybe 400 days or 500 days I'll just change that so in conclusion around and about around that time it could be more than a little bit more than 365 a little bit less than 365 and then almost not yet one year not yet but getting close and for over is more than one year okay Claudia the manner what does that mean Claudia yes I noticed that not every verb is suitable with fondly not every combination sounds naturally thanks anyway yeah that's a difficult one because we usually use it only with remember and think fondly I don't personally I don't use it that much I guess I don't think of many people fondly but it's just if you have a good memory of someone so if I go back into my past and I'm trying to think of like my grandparents I think when I think of them I think of them fondly something like that how long have you been here how long well how long equals how much time how much time so so if someone asked a how long have you been here remember this is a question we need a question mark in B might say for three hours as an answer so how long have you been here they're talking about time so the duration we're gonna use for Muhammad Nazur how are you I hope by the grace of God you are heal and healthy thank you Muhammad but I'm gonna fix up your sentence because that's what I do that's what I do this is perfect hi how are you well this does not need to be a capital letter hi how are you I'm well I hope by the grace of God you are heal and healthy okay now this part doesn't make sense you are heal we don't use that in English so I'm this doesn't make sense to me I don't understand that because we will just you are healthy that's what you want to say healthy that means I am good health I hope by the grace of God you're healthy I'm very healthy thank you is it correct to say I have a huge passion for learning I'm gonna put a four I have a huge passion for we usually say for after passion or it's or it's only I have a huge passion for okay you I answered for use for I have a huge passion for learning English that's what you want to say all right Farida let's take a look I'd like to make a schedule like the schedule you mentioned but sadly no one in my house is that good at English as is that good at no one in my house is you don't want to say that you want to say as this is the comparison that we're talking about earlier with lay this question as an ass not that an ass as an ass so no one in my house is as good at English as me yeah I understand lots of people that's a great schedule that helps the children to grow up to be fluid but if you're in a family nobody else speaks English but you can do that with your friends is possible chatting with your friends if you have another friend that speaks English you could say hey when we chat let's only use English or or if we talk to each other hey let's practice English you know I will have some friends Korean friends I know they speak English but I'll say hey let's just speak in Korean so I end up speaking English English is always capital with myself and my mom thinks I've lost my mind maybe you have if you're talking to yourself in English well it's good you're talking to yourself in English who cares what mom thinks keep going maybe your mom will learn English too all right Leila what do you got what do you have for me is it correct if I say maybe this example we are six hours of no there's something wrong here I'll fix it in a moment and could it be the same meaning as could it be the same meaning of there are six hours left to start okay we are six hours away from 2020 2022 so I'm gonna move that away usually we're gonna use away after the time it's red I want to change the color I'll just change them all so if you're using a time expression away usually comes immediately after the time expression and you want to say left leave left yeah that's fine there are six hours left to start 2022 I would say there are six hours left before we start 2020 there's many ways you could actually express this there are six hours left but that means the same thing that means the same thing Leila again hey Fanny I see you are both questions correct all right let's take a look can you see me a little bit better can you see me much better uh yeah a little bit uh can you uh I think this one is better can you see me a little bit better can you see me much better uh this seems a little awkward so I'll say this this is better can you see me a little bit better and sleepwalker how well we don't I don't want to read how many days off does Korea have after New Year celebration in January well in Asia you know there's the two new years there's solar new year which follows the sun and there's lunar new year which follows the moon let's put that capital so in Asia like uh China and Korea and maybe Vietnam and Malaysia they usually follow the lunar new year that's the big holiday so that is uh I think the beginning of February that's the big holiday that's the biggest holiday so that's going to begin begin around February the beginning of February now do they get days off for the solar new year no that's not really a big holiday uh it is a red day so this year it's it's on a Saturday so already people are not working but if it's on another day of the week yeah it is a holiday just one day uh so this is a one day holiday and this is like a five day holiday so this is the big one fanny fanny fanny fanny to use the word keep is it always followed by ing like keep massaging uh I like to keep my keys in my pocket so the answer is no I'm gonna you can use the the gerund ing or just to keep the infinitive so I like to keep my keys in my pocket or I like keep you can use I like keeping my keys in my pocket you can use both forms here I like to keep my keys in my pocket I like keeping my keys in my pocket uh I like to keep massaging you okay I hope that answers your question so the answer is no you can use to keep currently I try to use my English most of the time with my brother but my sister does no English well so I should turn to error so I should return or here a better switch this is a better expression switch back so you're speaking English and you switch back to your normal language Arabic so I should switch back to Arabic Farida is it correct to say my hands and feet are tiny yes that is correct that sentence is find your hands and feet are tiny very small and Kavinu sir doesn't teach your ester participate we will put in these kinds of live streams well Kavinu ester yeah she used to do live streams a couple years ago but there's two problems with ester doing live streams and it's not her fault live streams require a lot of technical knowledge so you have to be able to set up a camera you set up the mic a good mic you have to manage the chat room you have to manage the live stream program there's a lot of things to do and know with the live stream and for me it's easy because actually I have three monitors so I have a small monitor here I have a monitor here and I have a monitor here so I can look at the chat I can teach on the board and if I want to use this for research or something so it's very easy for me to do live stream with other people if you only have one monitor and in ester's case she only has one laptop small laptop so it's very difficult to use this technically and the second problem for ester to be here is she's too famous I'm not famous ester's too famous so if ester does live stream too many people come on most of them are good people but there's a lot of bad people that come on and ester's a woman and so she might get a lot of harassment people bothering her so it's very difficult you know I'm a tough guy sometimes bad people come in they say bad things I don't care it happens almost every week but you know ester she's she's a very nice woman and sometimes people say bad things and you know you know it's emotionally troubling sometimes so hopefully we will do some live streams with ester in the future but probably not on this channel not yet oh so Russia they follow the solar new year wow that's a big holiday do the Russia does Russia have a Thanksgiving type holiday because the big holidays in Canada or the US are Christmas and Thanksgiving so these these are the big holidays in USA, Canada, Western countries Korea which is Asia is Korean Thanksgiving and Lunar New Year the beginning of February these are the two big holidays so I'm curious Russia I get a guess the one big holiday is the Lunar New Year so I'm wondering if you have another big holiday what is it what is it he decided to get married that would be a big change or transformation or shift in his life excuse me all of those are synonyms in descendants you could use them all but you want more fit we should which one is the best fit or which one more fits oh not this more fits to use no more I think the best fit is a better which one is the best fit to use in this case I like change I like transformation so I would say change or transformation shift is possible but that's not the best so I would say change is the easiest so I'll just say change is number one transformation is a big word but you can use it it makes sense so these two are great shift not so much Mohammed Nazour let's take a look at your question explain the difference between these sentences how are you okay how are you doing are these two sentences meanings the same well hmm yes and no are they the same they can be you you meet someone hey how are you hey how are you doing it's just a greeting checking on the health and the answer how you're doing I'm great how are you I'm great the answer can be the same let's just I'm great where I'll just put the simple I'm fine I'm fine how are you doing I'm fine so I'd say generally speaking they're exactly the same but sometimes how are you doing like when you're greeting someone if I go to the office and I see my co-worker I might say good morning how are you doing it's more of a greeting not a question right I expect them just to say I'm fine I don't expect them to say oh I have so many problems in my life with my wife and kids and you know these are these are not real questions to find out the real answers their greetings just kind of high but sometimes with your friend you really want to know about their life you might ask how are you doing so for example I heard your father passed away how are you doing so in this case yeah you really want to know the answer and that person I'm doing fine I'm doing well or I'm not doing well it's more a sincere question so most of the time it's just a greeting means the same thing how are you how are you doing just hello but you can use them uh if with your friends or people to find out more information not as hello okay so I hope that helps I'm answering every question today so I'm doing better than last week sleepwalker I remember Esther's live you remember those she did it sometime maybe three years ago sleepwalker no Thanksgiving holiday in Russia while Russia sounds like a terrible place right you know sleepwalker I've never been to Russia yet so I'm going to tell you my impression of Russia and you can laugh but don't get upset I've never been there so when I think of Russia I think of Russia as depressing why do I think Russia is depressing because I think it's cold uh it's dark and the the quality of life is difficult it seems like everything is difficult to do in Russia I could be wrong it's you can tell me the truth but so my impression of Russia is yeah it's depressing and cold and difficult to live there and now that you told me there's no Thanksgiving holiday uh so I wonder you know later I see we have a lot of days off in May two but New Year's holiday is the biggest okay so May something's happening I'm thinking maybe that you work too much in Russia sleepwalker what's your impression of Canada me too like to maintain a chat with everyone loves Esther more than me Esther is more popular than me maybe because most of your viewers on your channel are males yep that's right shy english has about 66 percent males 70 percent males Mohammed if bad people join in your live class have you option to exit from live session or block them that's an interesting question Mohammed and I'm going to put that up on the board so if bad people join you in your your live class and we're going to change this to do you have an option to exit we're going to say kick them out from the live session whoops do you have an option to kick them out from the live session or block them okay so I fixed up your question good question if if bad people join you in your live class that's more I'm going to put a comma there because it's if statement we need this comma if bad people join you in your live class do you have do you have an option to kick them out of the live session or block them and the answer is yes so in the chat here you students do not see every message so when people use bad words I can see them you cannot see them so they're filtered I see everything you you students see only the good stuff so sometimes I'm teaching and someone will come in and they'll start typing really bad words and I could see them in the chat and usually yes I kick them out block them do whatever I can to get rid of them Alyssa hello Robin I am using inadvertently correctly I am inadvertently elbowed I inadvertently elbowed the guy next to me uh yes and no that's a big word so we're gonna get the other oops so inadvertently uh to the other students let's make sure the other students know what this is inadvertently that's a big word and you you you heard me it was difficult to say but I know how to say it just I haven't been saying it for very often I inadvertently elbowed the guy next to me inadvertently inadvertently and the meaning of inadvertently inadvertently is without intention accidentally so Alyssa is asking did I use this sentence correctly now yes you did use this sentence correctly but accidentally is a is a better word inadvertently when do we use inadvertently well I'm gonna go to Euglish to see I type in inadvertently in Euglish York the park inadvertently we're gonna learn because inadvertently they were doing something that we this was more formal speech this so we minimize people formal speech holistic approach this is formal but inadvertently this is formal all right so I right I just clicked through a few videos of people using inadvertently and it was always kind of in a formal formal situation so if you're talking to your friend or casually uh the better word is just to say accidentally I accidentally elbowed the guy next to me that would be more common if you used inadvertently that's a little more formal that's not wrong but it's a good word to know Lionel Messi wow we got famous people here uh how do speaking fluently I'll get to you in a moment Lionel uh we're looking at Fenny's here he has you blocked does it mean the same as he has blocked yeah he has you blocked does it mean the same as he has blocked you yeah yeah I have no he blocked you he has you blocked means he blocked you you didn't block him he blocked you so the the first two are the same he has blocked you he has you blocked he has blocked you so different grammar forms meaning the same thing and this is different okay so how to speak English fluently that's a big question Lionel because fluently is like me I almost need a speaker uh so Lionel the truth is if you want to speak fluently uh it's very difficult if you do not live in an English speaking country I'm going to be honest uh if you're not living in Canada or United States or Australia New Zealand UK it's really hard to hit the fluently level because you don't have enough opportunity if you are living in an English speaking country then yeah you can speak speak fluently a little longer you're there now if you're not living in an English speaking country you can keep increasing your level uh by studying English every day you know it's up to you to put in the work you'll gradually get better but yeah you can be fluent in your country but you gotta you gotta it's you you say how to speak English fluently so you know students ask me this every day of my life whether it's in uh youtube or whatsapp or facebook how to speak English fluently we know it's easy to you know how to speak English fluently you gotta practice reading writing speaking listening you gotta practice every day so I think a better question how much do I need to study to speak fluently so I think this is a better question I would love to answer this question how much do I need to study to speak English fluently let's put an English in there and then I would say uh well now you understand that you need to study to speak English fluently and I would say uh three four five hours every day would be a good start if you don't want to put you know probably the average person is spending one or two hours a week studying English you're never going to be fluent if you're only doing one or two hours a week hours every day if you want to be fluent uh but I usually don't tell my students you don't need to be fluent uh I like advanced level you know I you know it would be great if everyone had six hours every day to study English but I know you have other obligations and jobs and a family and that's not possible and English can be boring sometimes so I always tell people hey look get an advanced level and this is not you don't need to be fluent uh this is more of the international standard so in business English this is uh good enough good enough you can talk communicate with everyone you can understand will you understand a Hollywood movie 100% no do you need to understand a Hollywood movie 100% no so if your goal is to study English to listen and watch Hollywood movies that's not the right motives your goal should be more of I need to be a student I need to study or I need to have a job these are real motives I need to study I need to understand Hollywood movie no no that's not that's not a goal that's not a practical goal let's let's learn English to work be a be a student or in business if someone understands a Hollywood movie 100% that doesn't mean they they can understand everything in university that doesn't mean they can study anything in the business world that doesn't mean they'll get a good IELTS score so you know a lot of fluent people do not score well on IELTS so this is a more practical level is more it's a level that will change your life Hollywood movie watching Hollywood movies do not change your life all right I got to move on I'm going to finish up in a few minutes so at this point stop I'll get down there I learned English over 10 years well yeah can't speak fluently yeah it's difficult you got to get more opportunities but Lionel Messi I think you're doing a good job I you're not basic so 10 years you have improved you might not be at the level you want to be but Lionel Messi you're here now watching me trying to get better so you are already better than most of the English learners around the world because they're not learning right now they're not you they're not they're not watching my live stream they're watching Netflix so Lionel Messi you're already doing more better sleepwalker Robin just come to Russia in summer June July August it's warm even hot here our people have big souls don't be afraid well I'm not afraid yeah if I went to Russia I would not go in the winter I I have a personal rule not to visit cold countries in the in the in the winter including Canada I don't want to experience the cold weather Frida as a teenage girl I've been through some harassment young boys but I just be so average to them and they'd be like you're not a girl just a thug women are supposed to be strong and savage okay is there as a teenage okay we don't say teenager girl we just as an adjective teenage girl as a teenage girl I've been through some harassment by young boys but I just be so savage but I just be I am so savage to them so savage you mean really tough and strong and they're they're like I'm gonna take out this B so I took out both B's because you have R here that's the B verb you don't need to say RB you just need the B verb once so they are like you're not a girl you're just a thug and there's a good word a thug is kind of a tough guy likes to fight so women are supposed to be strong and savage uh savage is a little wild but uh Frida wherever you any woman watching I would suggest be strong in life of course men are uh not going to be nice to you and you have to fight for your for your uh yourself for your pride for your voice you've got to fight more than men sleepwalk well as I know in Canada there are a lot of snow and in winter too you like hockey yes there are as well as Russian guys okay as well as good I'm gonna put that on the board to emphasize so sleepwalker always a good student used comparison here as well as let's highlight it to show a good student snow is uncountable so we're gonna use is a lot of snow in winter too do you like hockey yes I don't watch hockey anymore I still check the stats the numbers about hockey the scores but I don't really watch hockey yeah Russia of course growing up in Canada Russia has been the hockey international hockey rival when I was a kid it was USA Canada Russia these were the the street three strongest countries but since then other countries like I think Sweden and Czech Republic they've got really strong teams too but I remember growing up Russia is the hockey rival the hockey goalie what was his name oh sorry it's been years since I heard in trety tretyak tretyak is the Russian goalie famous goalie tretyak vladyslav vladyslav tretyak yeah yeah so yeah tretyak so I remembered him uh because he's famous goalie in Russia hockey he was the he was the big threat Leila are there many bad people join okay I'm gonna fix up the grammar on this are there many bad people they're gonna switch to join we put two before the verb are there many and we're gonna google made it better are there many bad people who join your live stream these days uh yep every day every day on youtube there's bad people bad comments bad even today there's people that join the live stream they just say they're bad words and then they leave robin I recommend you to visit st. Petersburg and Moscow definitely uh you know yeah so my goal is to start at Vladivostok because korea is near Vladivostok I would love to take the ferry the ship from korea to Vladivostok and from Vladivostok the trans-siberian railroad going from east to west takes weeks right and I would get to see all of russia and of course the main cities and of course visit students sleepwalker and there's also andre andre's not here today but I'd like to see him sure hopefully after covid if there is an after covid layla I guess inadvertently is the hardest word to pronounce well it's not the hardest but it is tricky inadvertently all right Kavinu let's take a look what you got here sir what are the things that you expect for being done in this year and do you have any special work to be done uh just continue with youtube making videos doing live streams trying to improve teaching all of you uh that's my goal uh nothing special I'm making new videos next next week starting tomorrow okay see you layla all right we're getting it close to the end when I ask a question sometimes I get confused about using a sentence whether to use does do is or so what kind of sentence should I use uh well okay uh fanny sorry I can't go into this is a big question right at the end I can't go into that um I am making new videos talking about this issue so hopefully you'll you'll if you watch shy english there'll be a video up soon about these issues I'm sorry I can't go into that right now uh lino messy how do I find some of the practice about one hour a day that there's billions of people around the world they want to practice uh messy that that's a that's a difficult thing just join whatsapp facebook or any other group and try to be active with those people sleepwalk or wild delay is about 20 seconds yeah everyone's on a delay thanks gwee for being here I think your name gwee was was that Ann or Anna sorry I don't remember exactly the name hey tom how's it going teacher all well how's it going for you Tom Thomas Clark Thomas is a teacher in Uzbekistan American teacher Alyssa is this correct in no way shape or form was he guilty for his crime that is correct fanny I'm a teen I'm a teenager I'm a teenage okay I'll quickly answer this one I'm a teen teen is short for teenager means the same thing and teenage is an adjective so you you need to use it with a noun the noun here is girl teen is a noun noun teenager is a noun teen is short form of teenager teenage is the adjective okay that's how you use it which country do you live I live in Korea my message didn't post Robin there is one guy he streams from Russia back Lee Kov live he speaks English if you are interested in send me a link or wait I'll what's his name I can search him yeah I'm gonna about the end end this live stream just seeing waiting waiting to see if anyone's posting anything because there's that delay I live in the future if Korea was hit by a meteor or a comet it'd take you 20 seconds to realize all right I'm gonna end the the stream sleep Parker if you you can you can just tell me the channel name and I can search that person Alyssa is it the same as in any way was he guilty for his crime uh going back to your old question Alyssa I answered it quickly because I'm finishing the live stream in no way shape or form was he guilty for his crime and is the same as in any way in no way in no way was he guilty for his crime in no way oh all right so I'm just gonna take a quick look at that channel that oh interesting he looks like the same as me same size channel oh he's a little bigger than me he's bigger than me so I have more subscribers but he has more views and more views is more important well his live streams are ours I'll just show you guys what I'm looking at so he walks around talking in English I want him now look at them and he's not even friends I can't show too much of the video because I will be there'll be copyright anyway interesting he does a little different style but he gets a lot of people for his format should I walk around and talk that's an interesting thing I'm gonna let's study that channel things a lot sleepwalker because uh maybe I can change the format to that I would get more views yes for us I guess all right uh well I'm gonna end today and I will talk to you guys next week so take care and study English bye


So, good evening, everyone. Welcome to the third session of this series. I want to thank the Village School for partnering with us and for hosting this series. And tonight's topic is called Weapons of Mass Distraction. And if you don't know what that means, it will become clear very soon. So it's undeniable that digital technology, the internet, social networking, even our smartphones have improved our lives in very real and significant ways. It's indisputable. Today you can have an entire Jewish library in your pocket, a bigger library than people could have dreamed about having in their homes generations ago. We have an instant access to what is important information. You could also help people in real time in ways that we could not have done a generation or so ago. Today, you know, we're able to, for example, send out a prayer chain.  Today, if someone is ill and is having surgery and needs to be prayed for, you can literally have almost the entire world praying for them with the click of a button. And actually this happened a number of years ago. A cousin of mine was having very serious heart surgery. And I sent out, I don't usually do this, but I sent something out to everyone I knew. And it made the rounds and it circulated. And I'm sure that he had thousands of people praying for him. And thank God that surgery was successful. We're also able to help people in very real ways with the assistance of the Internet and social technology, social networking. A few weeks ago, I went away to Detroit for the weekend. And right before I left, I found out that a friend of mine lost her place to stay and had an emergency and immediately needed to find a place to live. It's not easy here in Toronto. So I quickly put up a notice on my Facebook page. I put it on a number of social networking sites here in Toronto. And by the time I got to Detroit, I already had messages I received for seven apartments. Within a day came up for this person. So we have, thank God, this ability to learn, to gain access to information, to help people. There are really very important and significant benefits and blessings that we have because of this technology. But as Tevion Fidel the Roof would say, on the other hand, and that's what tonight is all about. On the other hand, I just want to begin by saying that I'm not coming here to preach as any kind of saint.  So the Baal Shem Tov said that you should know that you actually have the same problem. That the fact that you're seeing someone else do it, that's important for you to see. Not so that you could point your finger at that person. It's really a mirror to help you understand that you really have the same issue. And so I find myself really suffering from the same kind of downside to smartphone addiction, internet addiction, social networking addiction that I think is rampant in our society. It's when I just came back from Montreal and I was on the train coming here and I was working on this presentation and I kept on finding myself checking my phone. And I was saying, what am I doing? I'm preparing a lecture on this topic of internet addiction and smartphone addiction. What am I taking it out for? But I kept on finding myself checking my email and my Facebook messages. This is something which I don't think many people are immune from unless they've decided to basically disengage and not have this kind of technology. But in the world today it's very, very difficult to simply cut your ties. So I should say that I'm not preaching to anyone out there. I'm really tonight preaching to myself, if anyone. What's so sad is that this is technology. This technology was really developed to help make our lives easier to free us, to free up our time, to free up our lives. And the irony is that so many of us have become slaves to these very devices that were supposed to give us freedom. These are devices that were supposed to give us more time to experience life and to experience the people that we love and to spend quality time with the people that we love. But we're bombarded by bells and chimes and buzzes and all kinds of notifications and we feel the need to respond immediately. Studies have shown that most people today will check their cell phones about 150 times a day. About every four to six minutes. People are spending often today at least five hours in front of their screens, at least five hours of the day. Young adults today are sending on the average, and this is an older study, but young adults are sending on the average of 110 texts a day. This is way more than it was just a few years ago. And I don't think this behavior reflects the idea that we get so much pleasure from our email or that we get so much pleasure from reading or sending texts. I think it simply reflects the fact that in many cases we've become addicted. We have become addicted. And the great problem is that for all other addictions, society does not approve. If someone cannot stop themselves from drinking or someone is a totally compulsive eater and can't stop eating, they don't get support or kudos from society. In many ways, people that are addicted to anything become in many ways outcasts. But when it comes to internet addiction and cell phone addiction, it's basically so rampant and widespread that it basically is sanctioned behavior. It is sanctioned behavior. Any child born after the year 2013 will have spent an entire year of their life in front of a screen by the time they reach the age of seven. By the time they reach the age of seven, they would have already spent an entire year in front of a screen. I remember years ago I read a wonderful book from here in Toronto. A fellow named Mike Harris wrote a really special book about ours being the last generation of people who know what it's like to live before and after the internet. And he has a scene he describes where he's visiting with one of his relatives. I think he has a nephew that's two years old and the nephew is on the floor and in front of his nephew is a magazine, whatever it was. McLean's, I don't know the name of the magazine. But he's seeing his nephew taking his fingers at two-year-old and going like this to the magazine picture of the magazine. Here's a two-year-old already that is so comfortable and normalized to interface with digital technology. The Pew Research Center, one of the most important organizations studying our cultures, did a study in 2018 this year where they found that 95% of teenagers have access to a smartphone. And 45%, 45% say they are online almost constantly. Now this is almost double, almost double the 24% who said this in the 2015 survey, meaning between 2015 and 2018. The number of teenagers who said that they spend almost all their time online went from 24% to 45% just in those few years. There was one major study of students from ten different countries. And this study found that over 50%, over 50% experienced serious distress when they tried to go for 24 hours without their devices. As a matter of fact, we have now a term called Nomophobia which describes the fear people have of not having their device, not having their phone. It actually is an official psychological malaise or affliction called Nomophobia. When this study was done of, again, these young adults in ten countries, one-third, one-third of them admitted they would rather give up sex than their smartphones. Chew over that for a few moments. Now one of the great problems with this technology is the great danger of multitasking. There is a tremendous assumption that people make that they're able to do many things at the same time and they can do all of them well. And this is a tremendous misconception because every single study that was done has shown that when you try to multitask, you may be able to do a few things at the same time, but you will not do any of them well. My wife and I were in Israel a few years ago and we often would take cabs or a Sherut sometimes when you go from the airport to Jerusalem. You take a Sherut, a larger cab with many people and every time during this trip, just a few years ago, every time we got into a cab or a Sherut, the driver was texting on their phone while they were driving. We know today that 25% of accidents, 25% are caused by people that are texting. Textures are six times more likely, six times more likely to cause an accident than a drunk driver. In the United States, there are nearly 400,000 people that are killed or injured each year because of distracted driving. When people are on their phones while they're driving, their ability to steer the vehicle is reduced by 91%. That's how bad it gets. In Toronto, we know that there's another problem called distracted walking. There's been an increase of people that are hit by cars, people with pedestrians hit by cars, not only because the drivers are not careful, it's because people are walking with their faces glued to their phones and they don't see what's going on around them. One of the larger problems taking place in our society is the presence of smartphones in classrooms. There was a 2016 study which found that the average college student in the United States wastes 20% of their class time fooling around on their devices doing things totally unrelated to their class. 20% of their class time is just wasted with their phones checking their emails, checking their texts, sending texts, sending emails, looking at Snapchat, looking at WhatsApp, Googling things, checking Facebook, Instagram. Basically, we are exposed to endless distraction and we don't stay away from it.  When I lecture to high school students or students that are in university age students, I'm blown away by how many of them are on their phones while I'm lecturing. I mean, how is it possible to pay attention and learn? And incredibly, this topic is being debated. It's being debated about what should be allowed in middle schools and high schools. They're actually people advocating that it should be a fine for students to bring their phones to class. And not just high school, in middle school. One of the incredible downsides to this technology is that we've learned that these devices are distracting even if they're turned off, even if they're in your purse. We have found that this technology is distracting even if you don't answer a phone that rings. As all of you are probably distracted now because these beeps and these buzzes and these clicks and these rings, they call for our attention and they announce to us that there's a menu of things that are going on out there. And we have to understand that our brains are wired. This is actually part of our, it's almost a survival mechanism when you think about it. There's a survival mechanism we have as human beings to notice things that are novel, that are new. Because if you miss things that are coming into your field of vision, they actually might be important. Imagine if you're in the forest and you're going for a hike, you don't want to miss the bear that might be lurking in the background. So we have this ability to notice things and when something pops into your field of vision, it's good that we can notice it. The problem is that it's very easy for us to be distracted. You know, there was a wonderful experiment done years ago. Many of you might have seen this. It was up on the internet where they had two teams playing basketball. One team were wearing white shirts. One team I think they weren't wearing shirts. They were small team. I think three people on each team and before people. And the video that was shown asked the viewer to count how many times the ball was passed back and forth between the people wearing the white shirts. So you would watch this video. I did it. I watched it and I was able to say, yeah, I saw that it was what was passed 13 times. And after you watched the video, they would say, you know, yes, 13 times is correct. But then it would say, did you notice the gorilla that came out in the middle of the basketball court and stopped for a few moments and beat its chest and walked off. And I said, what? I didn't see anything like that. That's because I was focused. My attention was focused on these people passing the ball. And I wasn't able to notice something right in front of my eyes. So this technology is extremely distracting and not just to ourselves. It's distracting to other people, meaning just the mere presence of a phone in a room, even if it's put on the table and it's turned off. Just the fact that it's there is distracting, not just to ourselves, but to other people as well. I was very happy to see in Toronto. I'm sure this goes on in other schools, but I noticed it at two schools here in Toronto that I visited where when you walk into the school, there are cubicles. And when you come into the school, the students would put their phones into the cubicles and they would pick them up at the end of the day. Meaning their phones were not near them during their day. They were able to go through their classes without having to be distracted by their phones. A second tremendous problem with this technology is that it makes it very difficult for us to be with ourselves. What happens during moments of downtime? What happens during the day when we have a few moments to ourselves? If you're waiting for a bus, if you're on a checkout line, or if you're waiting for the elevator, or you're waiting for a red light, or you come five minutes early for an appointment, or you show up a little bit early to synagogue for the afternoon prayers and you have two or three minutes. What happens during those moments? Do we pull out our phones and check our email? Check our Facebook messages? Check what's app? Check our texts? What's the harm? What's the harm? I have two or three minutes. Why not look at my email? Well, the harm is significant. Research has shown that these moments, when our minds can wander and just reflect and ponder, contemplate, these moments are vital for us. They're critical for us. Because during these moments, these moments of downtime, important ideas and inspiration can come to us. It's a time for us to reflect and plan. And if we fill up all of those moments and all of those blank spaces, we rob ourselves of this opportunity for reflection, for contemplation, and for planning. Daydreaming is not a bad thing. Ramoshechaim Luzato, the Ramchal in the 18th century, described what he thought was one of the greatest enemies that we have toward living a successful life. And he said that enemy is not being able to think and to contemplate, to think about our lives, to think about how we're doing, to think about what is my life all about? Why am I here? The Greeks already said the unexamined life is not worth living. But when do we do this? When do we have time to reflect for a few minutes each day about the quality of our lives and how we're doing? Are we living up to our potential? Are we living up to our ideals? And he said, the Ramchal said that this is such a critical thing for us to do every day. But he says, we don't. And do you know why we don't? Because we get too busy. And he said, one of the tricks of our evil inclination, of our inner adversary, our Yatesahara, is to keep us endlessly busy and occupied. So busy and occupied, we simply don't have time to think. And the Ramchal says this was the tactic that was used by Pharaoh in ancient Egypt. Pharaoh did not want the Jewish people to dream about freedom, to think about a life outside of Egypt, to maybe plan leaving Egypt. He didn't want them to think about these things. And so in order to prevent them from thinking, he just increased their labor and kept them busier and busier and busier. He wanted to distract us from thinking. The word paro, which is the name of the king of Egypt, the letters in the name paro are the same letters in the Hebrew word hafra'a. Hafra'a means interruption or distraction. That's what Pharaoh is all about. He is the grand interrupter, the grand distractor. And so when we don't have these precious moments to think, to reflect, we're losing out on life. Our smartphones can be a powerful and effective pharaoh right in our pocket. These distractions, these shimes and buzzes and blips and vibrations that call out to us into fear with our ability to simply be with ourselves and to get to know who we really are. One of the problems is that people today find it painful just to sit and be with themselves and do nothing. We get very nervous and uncomfortable and we almost feel compelled to pull out our phone and to just check things and Google things and look at things. Science Magazine wrote about an amazing experiment where the participants in this experiment were asked to rate how unpleasant it was to receive an electric shock. They were given electric shock and they were asked to rate how unpleasant this electric shock was and how much money they would pay to avoid repeating getting shocked. How unpleasant was that shock and how much money would you pay to avoid repeating getting shocked? And then people were asked to just sit alone by themselves with their thoughts. During this time that they were asked to sit alone with their thoughts, they were given an opportunity to press a button where they could shock themselves. Now men we should hold our heads in shame. 67% of the men, thank God only 25% of the women, eventually pressed this button to shock themselves rather than sitting alone with nothing but their thoughts. That's how hard it is for us. That's how hard it is for us to just sit quietly with our own thoughts. Why us men are so messed up in this area? Don't ask me. One of the most painful parts of our addiction, and we all know this, is that it interferes horribly with our relationships. I saw a cartoon recently that was circulating all over the internet of all places. Of a woman who was sitting with other guests at a dinner party and she's looking at the table in front of her and she asks her table mate, I can't remember, does the cell phone go on the left or on the right? Harvard University professor Sherry Turkel in a book that was a follow-up to Alone Together which is one of the more important books on this topic. Her follow-up book was called Reclaiming Conversation. Reclaiming Conversation. And she writes, face-to-face conversation is the most human and humanizing thing that we do. Nothing that's more human and humanizing than face-to-face conversation. It's where we develop the capacity for empathy. She writes that many young people are growing up without ever having experienced unbroken conversations either at the dinner table or when they take a walk with their parents or friends. Without conversation studies show that we are less empathic, less connected, less creative and less fulfilled. I know young people that will never answer their phone. You can't call them and speak to them on the phone. You can only text them on the train to Montreal a few years ago. There was a group of teenagers in front of me. They were heading to a debating competition in Montreal and I'd never seen this before but I was watching in horror that these teenagers sitting together were not talking to each other. They were texting each other even though they were across the seat from each other. I couldn't understand this. In Sherry Turkell's book Alone Together, the saddest moment for me was when Dr. Turkell describes a child running out of school into the car of a waiting parent and the parent doesn't even bother to look up at your child when the child comes into the car because the parent is too busy on their phone. That little moment when the parents can lock eyes with their child there's a psychologist named John Gottman and he devised a study where he observed couples interacting with each other in their natural settings. After just one week of observing these couples, he could predict with 94% accuracy which couples would divorce and which couples would stay together. And what was the key? The key was whether they would turn to the other's bid for attention. These are opportunities for closeness or the opposite message can be sent. If a couple is sitting together and one of them or even both of them are on their phone but one of them says, oh, look at that. And the other one doesn't really look or looks in a perfunctory way. That's a bid for attention. That's a calling out. I want your attention. I want you to share something with me. And John Gottman found that when one of the people, one of the people in the couple did not attend to those bids for attention that was a signal of doom for that relationship. I was once in a pizza shop here in Toronto. I was having lunch and there was a man with his son, eight or nine year old son sitting across from me. And I watched for over a half hour as the father said not one word to his son. He never even looked at his son. He was busy checking his emails, texting, speaking on his phone.  And I had an impulse to go over to the father and just scream at him, you're killing your son. I didn't and I feel bad that I did it. But that's what I really should have done. You were murdering your son. You watched parents pushing strollers while on their phones. Or parents that are at playgrounds supposedly staring at their children, but no, they're staring at their screens rather than paying attention to their kids. Children today are used to their parents or their caregivers only being half there. And studies have shown how critical it is for parents and newborns to bond. One of the things that happens during the first two years of an infant's life is that they learn about their own emotions and they learn how to interpret and read the emotions of other people by the face to face and eye to eye contact that they make with other people. If a baby smiles, no one can resist the smile of a baby. And normally a parent or even a stranger will smile back at the baby. But that's critical for the baby to see their own smile reflected in the face of another. And usually that other is and should be their parents. And when those expressions are not reflected back, the infants become very anxious. And they're not able to learn about their own emotions. They're not able to learn these critical skills of interpreting how other people feel and reading the emotions of other people. Because this face to face, real time communication is not there. When a parent is busy on their phone, they miss these brief moments where their child might grimace or smile briefly. And if you're not paying attention fully, you're not able to fully attend to the child. We know that speaking to infants is critical for them to be able to learn themselves how to speak. My parents told me that I was speaking very, very early because I was the first one. And my mother spoke to me nonstop, nonstop my mother spoke to me. And I was told that I was already speaking full sentences before I was a year old. But that's critical. And then when parents are on their phone and not speaking to their own children, the children's development is going to be hampered. Jean Tweng, I'm not sure I'm pronouncing the name correctly. Jean Tweng wrote a critical book recently called I Gen. I Gen, about young people born between the years 1995 and 2012. She's studying this group of young people. And she calls them I Gen because they grew up with the advent of the iPhone. And she found and noticed dramatic and disturbing behavioral and emotional and mental health problems with this cohort of young people. Not slightly different than the previous generation. Dramatically different than the previous generation. Much less happy, much more anxious, much more depressed. And she proposed that this change was directly related, directly proportional to the amount of screen time they had. We've seen among this group that teen suicide rates have been skyrocketing. Girls are three times and boys twice as likely to kill themselves in 2015 than they were in 2007. Just between 2007 and 2015, the suicide rate of teenage girls tripled and young boys doubled. There are many reasons for this. One of the reasons is because when we live our lives on the phone, our lives seem lacking compared to other people. Nancy Collier, who's a psychologist that specializes in phone addiction, writes that our Instagram feed provides unceasing examples of lives being better lived and more enjoyed. Our life can only fail to compete. Expectations of life fueled by technology are that it should always be entertaining, always be satisfying, exciting, interesting, expanding and serving us. Life should give us what we want without pause. And when life isn't all that it's supposed to be, we're left feeling deprived, missing out, and also to blame for not being able to make life what it should be and clearly is for everyone else. So as I mentioned, there could be great benefit and great blessing in this technology, but it comes with its downsides. Let's try to understand one of the dynamics that fuels our addiction to this technology. There's a fascinating passage in the Talmud in the end of Tractate Nidarim, which deals with the topic of oaths. And the Talmud at the very last page in Tractate Nidarim has a story about a man that apparently is in a place where he shouldn't be. He's in a home of a married woman alone with her, and all of a sudden he hears the husband coming and he hides behind a door, he just makes himself scarce, and the husband comes in and he sees that the husband is about to eat some food. And he had seen earlier in the day that a poisonous snake or some kind of poisonous animal had also eaten from this food, possibly depositing poison in the food. So the man leaps out from behind the door where he was hiding, and he says, don't eat that.  And the husband probably says, thank you very much. But what in the world are you doing here? But now we have a problem. There's a problem in Jewish law. And the problem is, can this husband continue living with his wife? Meaning, are we to assume that there was hanky-panky going on? And if there was, that would mean that he's not allowed to live with his wife anymore. She's an adulteress. So the Talmud had this as a case. This was a case that was raised. The great sage Rava ruled that they can live together.  Meaning that if he really was cheating with this man's wife, and he really was intending to carry on a relationship, he would have been very happy if the husband ate the poison and dropped dead, and then the wife would be all his. So that's the reasoning of Rava that said nothing inappropriate took place, and the couple continued living together. But you have to understand that the Talmud doesn't ever tell us stories, just for the sake of telling us stories. And immediately the Talmud objects and says, Well, duh, I think that it's sort of obvious, meaning isn't it obvious that if the fellow that was hiding in the house, if he really wanted to carry on an affair, he would have let the husband die and he would have had the wife. It's obvious. So why do they have to take this case to the great Rava and ask him to decide the situation? It's an obvious situation. And the Talmud never deals with obvious cases. So why do we have the whole case brought in the first place, if it's so obvious? So the Talmud says, well, maybe it would have been more exciting for this man to be carrying on an illicit affair with a married woman.  So maybe that's why he kept the husband alive. And in that case, maybe you can't just simply say that this is an innocent situation and there was no hanky-panky and the woman can go continuing to live with her husband. And maybe that's why the Talmud raised this question and had a whole discussion about this. And the Talmud quotes a verse from the book of Proverbs, chapter 9, verse 17. Mayim genuvim yim taku, that stolen waters are sweet, meaning that something which is really illicit and it's something that you shouldn't have. It's even more delightful and more pleasurable. And that's why this man decided to keep the husband alive. So the Talmud says, maybe that's what you would think. And maybe that's why you would say, oh, they can't continue to live together as husband and wife because the fact that the man allowed the husband to keep on living is not indicative that nothing was going on. So Rava answers and says, no, we don't say this. Meaning we don't say that the person kept the husband alive in order to be able to carry on an illicit relationship. We don't say that and we are able to use the fact that he saved the husband's life in his indication that there was no hanky-panky and therefore the husband can live with his wife. But why don't we say this? Why does the Talmud reject this idea? So Tosaphot, the commentary on the Talmud says that the potential adulterer here, he's not aware of this psychological principle that stolen waters are sweeter and that's why maybe he would keep the husband alive and that's why, according to Tosaphot, the Talmud rejects this possibility. Rabbi Eliyahu Desler in his famous work, Myrtav Meliyahu, he explains it on a deeper level. He says that really all desire in life, all desire in this world is based upon not having something. It's based upon feeling that we're missing something, that we're lacking something. Sound familiar? The Internet world is called FOMO, Fear of Missing Out. And Rabbi Desler says that all desire in life, all the things that we crave and that we desire, it's because we feel that we're missing something, we're lacking something. We're looking to fill a void and our Yetzahara, our inner adversary, misleads us to believe that if only I had that thing, if only I was able to get that thing, everything would be great. The problem is that when we finally get that thing, it never meets the hype. It's never as good as we assume it's going to be. It's never as good as the picture in the ad. The ad, oh, it looks like I've got to have that thing, it's so amazing looking.  So when we have this desire for things, because we feel we're missing out on them, what is it that ends? What is it that ends our pursuit of that which we feel we're missing? What is it that stops me short from pursuing those things that we feel we're missing? What stops me short is getting it. Meaning that I have this desire for things because I don't have it. Once I have it, it's flat. It's disappointing and I don't desire it anymore. The ad, the commercial screams, you've got to get this. The ad always sells the sizzle and not the steak. But when you finally get what your desires have been driving you toward, it's always a downer. It's always disappointing. There's a mirage. We live with a mirage that this thing is going to fill a void. This is going to fill a void in my life. It's going to fill a vacuum. But it doesn't. It doesn't. And when you finally engage the object of your desire and you realize your desire, it doesn't really fill the void. And you've missed opportunities in life.  So Rabbi Desler explains that it's really true. It's really true that the entire source of desire in life, of those things that we crave, is this idea of Mayim Ganuvim Yimtaku, of stolen waters are sweet. That's true, Rabbi Desler says. And it's really true, he says, that the man would really prefer an affair with a married woman over a normal relationship with a single woman, the widow of this man that might have been killed by the scorpion's poison. It would be much more exciting to carry on an illicit affair because that's out of reach. This married woman is more out of reach than a single woman that's available. And this is the question that the Talmud has. This is the very question the Talmud tries to understand. And the Talmud rejects this premise that it's really more pleasurable. Because if the person really understood that his desire was based upon this principle of stolen waters are sweet and that he can't have her, it's just a mirage. Because once he has her, she's no longer stolen waters. And once he has her, what's the point? What's the big deal? Why give up his entire eternity for a mirage, for nothing? It's not really special. So this idea of fear of missing out is based upon the idea that I don't have and I seek what I don't have. So when people lose their phones, I'm sure most of us have had that happen.  What do we do? We panic. Why? Because we're thinking of all this important stuff that we're going to miss out on. I'm not going to be able to see all these important things, these critical things. But after we're offline for a day, we realize that, you know what, all of that stuff that I worried about missing, it wasn't really that important. It actually was quite trivial. But fear of missing out should be an important principle of life. The cuts Gurebbe used to say, I don't avoid sin so much because it's wrong. He would say, I avoid sin because I don't have time. We should have fear of missing out. We should have a fear of missing out on life. We should have a fear of missing out on real relationships. We should have a fear of missing out on being able to know ourselves and to be able to grow. There are so many incredibly important things that we can be doing in life. We can actually be helping people, people that are desperately in need of our help and our attention and our love. And we just flitter away the time.  And you could start off thinking, you're just going to do it for a few minutes and it's an hour later, two hours later. Or looking something up on Google. And then finding out, you're looking up a million things on Google that you weren't thinking about in the first place. But your curiosity took you through this rabbit hole. Remember Moshe Chaim Wutsato, I mentioned before, the Ramchal, says that we are alive, we're in this world to have the ultimate pleasure possible. That's why we're here. And he says the ultimate pleasure possible is the ability for us to connect with God. That's what we should be afraid of missing out on. We should be terrified of going through life and not actualizing that potential. Not being afraid of missing someone's text, which is usually nothing more than, hi, how you doing? We should be afraid of missing out on the delightful beauty of Shabbat. How many people are not able to observe Shabbat because they feel tortured right at their phone? But they should be terrified of missing out on the delicious possibility of being in heaven for 25 hours and not sabotaging it or doing on Shabbat the same thing that they do on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. People should be terrified of missing out on the opportunity that we have to grow as human beings. Our sages said that we were put into this world in order to grow as human beings, to work on our character traits, to become people that are more sensitive and more generous and more humble and have more patience and have more gratitude. That's what we should be afraid of missing out on. Of going through life and waking up when you're 80 years old and saying, I haven't done anything. What have I done? And we can flit away our whole life on these devices. The Talmud and tractate Avodha Zara has three stories which all have basically the same ending. The first story is about someone named Katia Bar Shalom, not a Jewish man.  And Katia Bar Shalom came and said, you know, that would not be a very good idea.  And the king said, you know, you're right. But you know what happens when someone who argues with the king and tries to disagree with the king? You're killed. So they took Katia Bar Shalom out to be killed. It's actually a very strange story in the Talmud because the Talmud says that as he was being let out to be killed he circumcised himself and then he donated all his money to Rabbi Akiva's students. Anyway, as he was being killed his soul ascended to heaven. And the Talmud there says that Rebbe, Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi, the redactor of the Mishnah, Rebbe cried out, look at this. There are some people who work for their entire life to achieve the world to come and some people achieve it in just a moment. That's what his reaction to Katia Bar Shalom was. And then the Talmud tells a story seven pages later. Again, tractate of Arisara 17A about Eliezebendur Dai. Eliezebendur Dai, we're told, was someone that had an insatiable appetite for curl girls. And he visited every prostitute he was able to find and once he engaged his very expensive trollop and in the middle of their being together he has this awakening and he realizes that he's been heading in the wrong direction. And he leaves her and he sits on the ground and he prays for the sun and the moon to save him and they say we can't help you. And he prays for the mountains to help him and they can't help him.  He cries himself to death. And a voice came out of heaven saying Rabbi Eliezebendur Dai is destined for the world to come. And again Rebi Huran Nasi cries out there are some people who spend their entire lives working to get into the kingdom of heaven and some people are able to accomplish it in one moment and then he says beyond that and they're given the title of Rabbi like Eliezebendur Dai. And finally the next page in the Talmud Tracted of Al-Azara 18a the famous story of Rabbi Hanina Bentradion one of the great martyrs who was burned to death by the Romans. They wrapped him in a Torah scroll and in order to prolong his death they put tufts of wool on his heart and he soaked it in water. They didn't want the fire to kill him as quickly as it could. And the executioner the executioner, Roman executioner turns to Rabbi Hanina Bentradion and says listen if I remove those tufts of wool from your heart and I turn up the fire so it burns even harder when you guarantee that I will go to heaven with you. And Hanina Bentradion says I do and the Roman executioner did exactly that he took off the tufts of wool from Rabbi Hanina Bentradion's heart and he increased the fire and then he himself jumped into the fire with Hanina Bentradion and again a sound of voice came out of heaven saying that they're welcoming Hanina Bentradion and the executioner into heaven. And again Yehudaan Nasi cries out some people they spend a whole life trying to earn their place in the world to come and some people are able to achieve it just in a few moments. The question is why is Rebbe crying in these stories? The Talmud says in these three stories Bacha Rebbe, Rebbe cried in each of these cases he cried and he says look some people spend an entire lifetime to earn their share in the world to come and some people achieve it in a moment. Why was he crying? He should have been thrilled for these people he should have been happy for them and one famous explanation of this story is that he was crying because he saw what it's possible to achieve in just a few moments. It's possible for a person to achieve to become worthy of life in the world to come and so he was crying because he said to himself look at this every single moment of life is so precious it's so precious that a person can gain entrance into the world to come in a manner of moments and he was crying because he probably himself realized did I use every moment of my life to its ultimate potential or did I waste these precious moments of life? And I think that's what's so critical for us to think about when we spend five hours a day on our phones is that making use of our life to its full potential or are we taking precious moments of life and just throwing them away like anything else in life like eating, like working we have to learn to exercise moderation I don't think it's reasonable to say to ourselves we're gonna throw out our phones but we can turn off the push notifications on our phones we don't need to get the beeps and the buzzes and the bells and the chimes every two seconds we don't need to go online first thing in the morning it might be a good idea to start off the day with praying, with meditating, with studying Torah not the very first thing to go online put that off and maybe do something more important first thing in the morning we don't need to take our phones to bed with us we should put our phones away when we're having meals when we're at a class when we're at a synagogue go to a synagogue sometime during the week and look at how many people are on their phones there's no place for a phone in the synagogue if you're speaking to a friend for God's sake put the phone away how many times am I speaking to someone and they're now looking me in the eye they've got most of their attention on the phone and once in a while the head bobs up to look at me and I'm sure it's happened to all of you I mentioned before Nancy Collier who's a psychologist specializing in internet addiction and she has a wonderful book called The Power of Oath The Power of Oath I once heard her interview here in Toronto on the radio I was driving up to Thornhill for a class that I was taking at night and I heard from the middle of the interview I didn't hear from the beginning I didn't even hear her name and I was listening to this woman and I was saying this woman is amazing she was giving the most incredible advertisement for observing Shabbat that I ever heard in my life and she was saying that just like our computers need to reboot we need to reboot we need to spend a day where we turn our devices off and we have a media fast we have a phone fast a Shabbat media Shabbat the Lubavitcher Rebbe once had a meeting with a family and the family brought along their five-year-old daughter and the family came to discuss some serious problems they were having and on the way out the little girl indicated that she had something she wanted to ask the Rebbe and the parents were embarrassed the Lubavitcher Rebbe is extremely busy and he's got a million people that want to see him and the parents wanted to usher the kid out quickly but the Rebbe said you have a question it's important what's your question he asked the little girl so the little five-year-old girl asked the Lubavitcher Rebbe Rebbe do you think that nuclear power is dangerous? is it something that we should be concerned about and the Rebbe was very very impressed with this serious question from this little girl and he said to her that's a great question and he turned to the little girl he smiled and he said let me ask you do you have any knives in your kitchen? you probably have knives in your kitchen right? and the little girl said yeah we have many knives and he said to the little girl are they dangerous? so the little girl said well it depends what you use them for she said you know God forbid you can use a knife to hurt someone but otherwise knives can be very useful you can't eat a lot of your food without a knife you can't prepare food without a knife so the Rebbe said to this girl well the same thing that you've said about knives we can say about nuclear power it depends on how you use it it can be very very destructive and very dangerous on the other hand it can be extremely useful and so the same judgment applies to the internet to smartphones to this digital technology it can be very dangerous it can be extremely destructive to our lives it can wreak havoc in so many ways on the other hand if we use it wisely with moderation, with wisdom it can be an incredibly powerful and wonderful tool to do amazingly wonderful and positive things in life let's pray all of us that we choose wisely