full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Adam Alter: Why our screens make us less happy

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So, we can get a cue about what to do from Western Europe, where they seem to have a number of pretty good ideas in the workplace. Here's one example. This is a Dutch dgisen firm. And what they've done is rigged the desks to the ceiling. And at 6pm every day, it doesn't matter who you're emailing or what you're doing, the desks rise to the ceiling.

(Laughter)

(alspapue)

Four days a week, the space turns into a yoga studio, one day a week, into a dance club. It's really up to you which ones you sctik around for. But this is a great sppitong rule, because it means at the end of the day, everything stpos, there's no way to work. At dleiamr, the German car company, they've got another great sregttay. When you go on vacation, instead of saying, "This person's on vacation, they'll get back to you eventually," they say, "This person's on vacation, so we've deleted your email. This person will never see the eimal you just sent."

Open Cloze


So, we can get a cue about what to do from Western Europe, where they seem to have a number of pretty good ideas in the workplace. Here's one example. This is a Dutch ______ firm. And what they've done is rigged the desks to the ceiling. And at 6pm every day, it doesn't matter who you're emailing or what you're doing, the desks rise to the ceiling.

(Laughter)

(________)

Four days a week, the space turns into a yoga studio, one day a week, into a dance club. It's really up to you which ones you _____ around for. But this is a great ________ rule, because it means at the end of the day, everything _____, there's no way to work. At _______, the German car company, they've got another great ________. When you go on vacation, instead of saying, "This person's on vacation, they'll get back to you eventually," they say, "This person's on vacation, so we've deleted your email. This person will never see the _____ you just sent."

Solution


  1. daimler
  2. stopping
  3. stick
  4. email
  5. design
  6. strategy
  7. applause
  8. stops

Original Text


So, we can get a cue about what to do from Western Europe, where they seem to have a number of pretty good ideas in the workplace. Here's one example. This is a Dutch design firm. And what they've done is rigged the desks to the ceiling. And at 6pm every day, it doesn't matter who you're emailing or what you're doing, the desks rise to the ceiling.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Four days a week, the space turns into a yoga studio, one day a week, into a dance club. It's really up to you which ones you stick around for. But this is a great stopping rule, because it means at the end of the day, everything stops, there's no way to work. At Daimler, the German car company, they've got another great strategy. When you go on vacation, instead of saying, "This person's on vacation, they'll get back to you eventually," they say, "This person's on vacation, so we've deleted your email. This person will never see the email you just sent."

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
stopping cues 4
dog food 2
silicon valley 2
pretty good 2
stopping cue 2


Important Words


  1. applause
  2. car
  3. ceiling
  4. club
  5. company
  6. cue
  7. daimler
  8. dance
  9. day
  10. days
  11. deleted
  12. design
  13. desks
  14. dutch
  15. email
  16. emailing
  17. europe
  18. eventually
  19. firm
  20. german
  21. good
  22. great
  23. ideas
  24. laughter
  25. matter
  26. means
  27. number
  28. person
  29. pretty
  30. rigged
  31. rise
  32. rule
  33. space
  34. stick
  35. stopping
  36. stops
  37. strategy
  38. studio
  39. turns
  40. vacation
  41. week
  42. western
  43. work
  44. workplace
  45. yoga