In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: Here's What a 5-Day Break From Facebook Will Do for Your Brain If you need more convincing, check out "Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy" by Siva Vaidhyanathan. Can You Answer the 10 Questions on the US Government's Science Knowledge Survey? The American Accent Is Older Than the British Accent Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day withCody Gough andAshley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Follow Curiosity Daily on your favorite podcast app to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. Still curious? Get exclusive science shows, nature documentaries, and more real-life entertainment on discovery+! Go to https://discoveryplus.com/curiosity to start your 7-day free trial. discovery+ is currently only available for US subscribers.
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-us-governments-science-knowledge-quiz-facebooks-brain-effects-and-manufactured-british-accents
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: HI, we've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn how the American accent is actually older than the British accent, what a five-day break from Facebook will do to your brain, and we'll quiz you on the 10 questions on the US government's science knowledge survey.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, what's the longest you've ever gone without Facebook? I mean, like since you started using Facebook.
[LAUGHS]
CODY GOUGH: 18 years, a couple of weeks, maybe. Usually like a week, if I go to the country, or I'm really traveling a lot, 10 days, probably, max.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm jealous.
CODY GOUGH: How about you?
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't think I've gone more than a few days. I think I'm always on there. It's been less, lately. But yeah, I've never gone a week.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, if you believe this new research, then you might start thinking about taking a break from Facebook, just to see what happens. I know I am. A series of studies is showing how the site negatively impacts our moods and stress levels, and how valuable even a short break from social media can be. The most recent study out of the University of Queensland ran in-depth tests of Facebook users life satisfaction, stress level, and moods. And they also took saliva samples to measure cortisol levels. That's a hormone generally linked to stress. The higher your levels, the more stressed out you probably are.
Well, guess what? The subjects in the study saw a significant drop in cortisol levels after five days off of Facebook. Now, these results are not super conclusive, because the cortisol levels might have gone down, depending on what the subjects were doing, instead of being on Facebook. Like if they took walks or pet their dog, I don't know. But a 2015 study out of Denmark had people take a break from Facebook for a week. And they saw 55% decrease in stress. Along with an uptick in face-to-face socializing. That's pretty significant.
Anyway, you can read about these studies and more today on curiosity.com, and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But computer science professor and Deep Work author, Cal Newport, suggests quitting Facebook for one month, just to see what parts of the site you truly miss. And which parts were just mindless browsing. You might be surprised at what you learn. And we all know that when you get rid of one habit, you need to replace it with another. So seriously, if you don't already have the Curiosity app, then try deleting your Facebook app, and putting us in its place, right?
CODY GOUGH: I actually did this when I started working at Curiosity. I don't have the Facebook app on my phone, anymore.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, I deleted it months ago. And I started learning actual knowledge instead of just what my friends had for dinner, or what my third cousin or the drummer in my eighth-grade band, thinks about politics.
ASHLEY HAMER: That's impressive.
CODY GOUGH: Not a bad trade, if I do say so myself. We're going to do something a little different right now. And we're going to host a little play-at-home quiz, that also happens to be the US government's science knowledge survey.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: What's the background on this?
ASHLEY HAMER: So every two years, the National Science Foundation makes this report about the state of science and engineering in the United States. A lot of it's like really dense and technical. There's analysis of the labor force and higher education and research trends. But deep in the report, is a part that is really interesting to the general person. And it's entitled Science and Technology, Public Attitudes, and Understanding. And in there, the NSF grades the American public on their ability to answer basic science questions. They want to see if people have enough knowledge to understand a quality newspaper's science section, which I feel like seems reasonable.
CODY GOUGH: Sure. So we're going to go through the test. It's just 10 questions, and they're all true or false. So you can play along at home. And she's going to ask the question, and then say whether it's true or false. And then I'll tell you how the US does in comparison to other countries. The countries mentioned, and I won't give you all the numbers for these. But the countries mentioned are the US, and Canada, and China, the EU. India, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, South Korea, and Switzerland. I'll kind of let you know where the US generally falls, and maybe if there are any outliers that are way ahead or way behind everybody else.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'll ask you the questions, give you the answers. And if you want to know why that's the answer, we have all of that on our article today on curiosity.com.
CODY GOUGH: And we won't have time for all the questions, but we'll read some of our favorite ones, right here.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, ready. Here we go. True or false? The center of the Earth is very hot. True.
CODY GOUGH: Everyone is pretty good at this question, except China and India is closer to 50%. But the US, 85% got that right.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice. True or false? Does the Earth go around the sun? Or does the sun go around the Earth? The Earth goes around the sun.
CODY GOUGH: Sure. Only 73% of Americans got that right.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, I feel like that's one that trips people up.
CODY GOUGH: If you're in a room full of four people. One of those people, statistically, thinks the sun goes around the Earth.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh, boy.
CODY GOUGH: That's problematic. [laughs]
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, this one might be tricky. True or false? All radioactivity is man made. That is false.
CODY GOUGH: The US, Canada, and Israel are all at 70% or above. Everyone else kind of lags behind, but yeah, there's lots of stuff that's not man made that's radioactive.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. True or false? Lasers work by focusing sound waves. False.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah, not that many people knew this one, either. Under half of respondents got it correct in most countries, except for Canada and Israel, so.
ASHLEY HAMER: That Just surprises me. Lasers are light. What?
CODY GOUGH: Got to work on the laser technology.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. True or false? Here we go, all the marbles. Human beings developed from earlier species of animals. That is true.
CODY GOUGH: And the two countries that knew this the least, well, are Russia and the US. Only 52% of correct answers were given in our country. Anyway, find links in the show notes. We'll do, maybe, more fun trivia quiz things in the future, if this goes well.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: All right, Ashley, which came first British or American English?
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, I always thought it was British. But I feel like you're going to tell me that's wrong.
CODY GOUGH: Correct. It turns out that the American accent is older than the British accent.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow
CODY GOUGH: Let's get into why. The main difference, first of all, is rhoticity, or how a language pronounces its Rs. A standard American newscaster voice, like I use sometimes, is a rhotic accent. So I enunciate my Rs. While the non-rhotic stereotypical English accent drops the R pronunciation in words like butter and corgi. Of course, there are a few American accents that drop the R, too. Like the stereotypical Boston, park the car in Harvard Yard, for example. Or a waitress in the South who calls you sugar. And some accents in northern England, Ireland, and Scotland retained their R's, as well. Like, for your tartan.
ASHLEY HAMER: I don't know what that is.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: A tartan is what the kilt is. It doesn't matter.
ASHLEY HAMER: OK.
CODY GOUGH: But get this. I'm part Scottish, by the way. So I'm allowed to say these things. Americans didn't add the R. British speakers, willingly lost their R. Around the Industrial Revolution, some lower-class British people started to make a lot of money. But their accent gave them away as commoners. You could just tell what their class was by listening to them talk. So. To separate themselves from their low-class roots, this new class of Brit developed their own posh way of speaking. And eventually, it caught on throughout the country. It's called Received Pronunciation. And even influenced speech patterns of many other English dialects, like the cockney accent, for example. Which is just as non-rhotic, but a lot less hoity toity.
And you can hear an interesting blip in linguistic history around the time radio became popular. The mid-Atlantic or transatlantic accent was deliberately invented as the perfect voice for broadcasting. That's when the R's are dropped and the T's are crisp and the vowels are softened. Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Vincent Price, that kind of thing. Dance, car writer, stuff like that. It fell out of style after World War II. But it goes to show how language is not always as organic as you might think.
ASHLEY HAMER: That Darling.
CODY GOUGH: Yes, exactly. And you could say, read about everything we talked about today, and more, on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY HAMER: That is impressive. Join us again, tomorrow, for Curiosity Daily.
[LAUGHTER]
Join us again tomorrow, for the Curiosity Daily, and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Stay curious.
[LAUGHTER]
It kind of works.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.