BBC Take Away English (Young and lonely 孤独的年青人)

自从暑假以来就一直在BBC的官网上学习它的专题《随身英语》，文章不长，但是语言点非常丰富，坚持学下来收获颇丰的，但是由于官网是需要翻墙才可以进去，所以我也想把这些资源分享给同样和我一样在学习英语的同伴们，嗯嗯，话不多说，每日一更，坚持打卡，必有回响。

Young and lonely 孤独的年青人

Young and lonely

我们生活在一个过度拥挤的地球上，人口迅速增长，总数接近80亿人。尽管如此，许多人还是感到孤独或生活处境孤立。英国广播公司展开了一项有关孤独的调查，参与这项调查的5.5万人来自世界各地近240个国家。
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article

How lonely are you? Sometimes living alone or being in a remote location with nobody around to talk to can give you the feeling of despair and isolation. It's not a great feeling. There's a common stereotype that it's something that affects older people more, but research has found that loneliness is something that can affect us all, whatever our age.

There's a familiar phrase that says it's possible to be lonely in a crowd – despite being surrounded by hundreds of people, you think you have nobody to talk to or to connect with and that nobody wants to listen to you anyway. It's probably not true, but loneliness is seen as a big problem for the mental health of the population wherever they live - so much so that the British government even has a minister for loneliness.

The BBC recently completed a survey about the topic and it found that people aged between 16 and 24 experience loneliness more often and more intensely than any other age group. Researchers from the University of Manchester who analysed the data, suggested feeling lonely may plague the young because it's a time of identity change - figuring out your place in the world and of learning to regulate emotions.

Psychology lecturer and BBC presenter Claudia Hammond says that "it's tempting to conclude that something about modern life is putting young people at a higher risk of loneliness, but when we asked older people in our survey about the loneliest times in their lives, they also said it was when they were young."

The issue is certainly being talked about more. And in the UK, the Minister for Loneliness Tracey Crouch has said that "the government now recognises loneliness as one of the biggest health challenges we face." She also said there needs to be a "national conversation" to end the stigma about admitting to feeling lonely.

The BBC Loneliness Experiment also found the type of culture you live in has implications for loneliness. People from cultures which tend to put a high value on independence, such as Northern Europe and the US, revealed they would be less likely to tell a colleague about their loneliness. But in cultures where extended family is often emphasised, such as in Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, older women in particular were at lower risk of feeling lonely.

vocabulary

despair 绝望
isolation 孤独，隔绝
stereotype 成见
lonely in a crowd 即使在热闹处，仍感孤独
connect 建立联系
mental health 精神健康状态
experience 感受到，体会到
intensely 强烈地
plague 折磨，使苦恼
figure out 找到…
regulate emotions 控制、调节情绪
modern life 现代生活
health challenge 健康隐患
stigma 耻辱
implication 可能的影响
independence 独立
extended family 大家庭

make sentence

1. Not being married and having a child no longer carries a stigma in certain societies today.
2. Since Phil lost his job, he's been figuring out how to pay for the new car he'd just bought.
3. We all had to work intensely to complete our assignments on time.
4. My mum had a feeling of despair when she lost her purse and her keys to the house.
5. The museum has got so busy we now have to regulate the number of people visiting at certain times.