You are here

C1 advanced: Pros and cons of mobile phones

Gemma is sick of being ignored while Sam is on his phone. In this video they discuss the pros and cons of being constantly connected. What will they decide to do? 

Do the preparation exercise first. Then watch the video and follow the instructions to practise your speaking.

Check your understanding 1


Task 1

Check your understanding 2


Task 2

Check your understanding 3



Language level

Advanced: C1


I use my phone not too often when am with my friend. The prospect of phone includes: staying connected with contacts, accessibility to information, keeps one busy as activity goes on and so on. The constraint on other hand includes: self apathy, creates distractions, its brings about multitasking that can divert focus and so on.

when I am with my friends, I try not to use the phone, for emergency calls or messages only.
I think that the pros and cons are:
pros: The cellphone is an excelent invention, because with it you can make calls to other people around the world, you can make video calls, you could search the web for information about anything, also with it you are able to listen to music, watch videos and use different social networks like facebook etc.
cons: With the use of the cellphone the people have lost contact with each other; comunication between parents and children, friends, sibiling etc has been lost because it is increasingly preferred to send a message, or post something in a social network than to have a conversation with the person in front of us

I don't use it a lot when I am out with my friends only when I am answering an urgent call or message.
In my opinion, the pros and the cons of mobile telephone are below.
Pros: You can use it to go online and find various information and have a chat with people all over the word totally free.
Cons: It distracts you from things happening around you in real life.
It's dangerous to use while you are doing activities such as driving or crossing the street.
From all these above we need to recharge the mobile phone quite often.

I don't have friends, so it's not a problem for me being distracted by social networks. But Instagram and youtube are really annoying

pros:getting lots of information directly, searching easily, making our life more convenient.
cons:It may causes people declining the bond of emotion, and contribute to eyes' illness, and some of people due to addicting to the smartphone, they're often forgetting their diet, or lack of production.

When I hang out with my friend, I always show my respect to spend time with them. And I never texted messages while we were talking. It always causes a good atmosphere having a conversation.

It can happen I use my mobile phone when I'm with my friends or with my relatives, but only for answering to an urgent call or message, otherwise for giving their some informations about the topic of the discussion. With regard to pros and cons of mobile phones, I think that theme will be obsolete within a few years, because we will use other devices, more technologically advanced, as one wich install in our clothes, or even under skin.

one of the downsides is cyber bullying

i'am afraid i use my mobile most of a day chatting or posting memes, cocktail of posts, i can admitt that facebook nowadays became nearly addiction
but on my point of view to be honest it have a lot of advantages, the most important one is making our life easier
and the most popular disadvantage is isolating us from real life and using up our time
i hope that one day we could rationalise our use of mobile in general

No. I didn't using the phone when I meet my friend cause I think not polite. The phone has many pros we can chat, learn English, call friends, ... And the cons is people using the phone everywhere.