Задача по теме: "Понимание информации в тексте"

Sixteen-year-old Henry is Skyping while bouncing up and down on a big Pilates ball. “I sleep with my phone on my pillow. It’s the first thing I reach for when I wake up in the morning,” he says, from his home, appearing in and out of shot as he goes up and down. Does he worry about sleeping with a phone so close to his head? “Oh no!” he says. “I mean if I got a brain tumour, I’d have something to tweet about!” Henry is being flippant, and I suspect he thinks the question of how much he uses a smartphone is a lot of fuss over nothing, but he is too polite to say so. He knows it is not good to sleep with a phone on his pillow, but really, where is the harm?

According to new research into the media habits of teenagers, they spend an average of three hours a day online, which overtakes the time spent watching television. A 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 15% of Americans aged between 18 and 29 were “heavily dependent” on their smartphones for online access. There is no question that smartphones make our lives easier. But at what cost? Several studies have warned that excessive phone use can affect cognitive abilities, sleep, the quality of social interactions and the ability to engage at work.

Can adolescents survive without their smartphones? A group of professors decided to initiate a one-day project, in which students were asked to completely refrain from using their smartphones. Students reacted to the idea with a mix of incredulity and scepticism. Some students pushed back, citing concerns that family members would worry if they were unreachable. A number of students questioned the very notion that they were in any way addicted to their devices. Others wanted to stay up to date with their friends’ news. However, it was ultimately decided to make participation in the project mandatory for all students.

For many students, the days leading up to the challenge were quite busy. In addition to notifying their friends and family, some students decided to announce their upcoming technology hiatus by posting information about it on social media sites. However, the majority of students anticipated some of the problems they would face by printing bus schedules, driving directions, and other materials they usually accessed in real time from their phones. They even consulted with friends and roommates how to wake up in the morning without using their phone alarm.

During the unplugged day, students also experienced a mix of emotions. For some of them, the strongest feeling was anxiety. Students felt anxious about missing something important. How would they catch up with all the social media updates they were missing? One student wrote of her fears about losing contact with people: “I am not receiving messages, emails, likes and comments. It feels as if no one is willing to interact with me! I am alone!”

However, the most common sentiment was that the phone provided “a sense of safety.” Even when it was turned off, some students carried their phone with them just in case there was an emergency. Students also expressed feelings of guilt at not being able to respond to messages received in their class chats. They were concerned that they were hurting their classmates’ ability to complete class assignments and worried about the repercussions their disconnection might have on their reputations.

Owing to the experiment, many students came to realise that technology has pluses and minuses. Although most of them concluded that technology was essential and that living without a mobile phone would be impossible, a fairly large number of students understood that control and moderation were important. As one student wrote,“I appreciate technology and the convenience it brings to our lives. Yet too much technology can be detrimental.” One thing that surprised everybody was that young people are more open to adjusting their technology habits than it was expected. Rather than being totally fixed in their ways, millennials are ready to discover new tasks and duties.  

(Adapted from ‘Surviving a Day Without Smartphonesʼ by Marcello Russo, Massimo Bergami and Gabriele Morandin)