Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high-tech devices, while driving, walking, shopping, even sitting in toilets. When connected electronically, they are away from physical reality.
People have been influenced to become technology addicted. One survey reported that “addicted” was the word most commonly used by people to describe their relationship to iPad and similar devices. One study found that people had a harder time resisting the allure of social media than they did for sleep, cigarettes and alcohol.
The main goal of technology companies is to get people to spend more money and time on their products, not to actually improve our quality of life. They have successfully created a cultural disease. Consumers willingly give up their freedom, money and time to catch up on the latest information, to keep pace with their peers or to appear modern.
I see people trapped in a pathological (病态的) relationship with time-sucking technology, where they serve technology more than technology serves them. I call this technology servitude. I am referring to a loss of personal freedom and independence because of uncontrolled consumption of many kinds of devices that eat up time and money.
What is a healthy use of technology devices? That is the vital question. Who is really in charge of my life? That is what people need to ask themselves if we are to have any chance of breaking up false beliefs about their use of technology. When we can live happily without using so much technology for a day or a week, then we can regain control and personal freedom, become the master of technology and discover what there is to enjoy in life free of technology. Mae West is famous for the wisdom that “too much of a good thing is wonderful.” But it’s time to discover that it does not work for technology.
Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google acknowledged that “we can be swept away by our technologies.” To break the grand digital connection people must consider how life long ago could be fantastic without today’s overused technology.
59. The underlined word “allure” in Paragraph 2 probably means ______.
A. advantage B. attraction C. adaption D. attempt
60. From the passage, technology companies aim to ______.
A. attract people to buy their products B. provide the latest information
C. improve people’s quality of life D. deal with cultural diseases
61. It can be inferred from this passage that people ______.
A. consider too much technology wonderful
B. have realized the harm of high-tech devices
C. can regain freedom without high-tech devices
D. may enjoy life better without overused technology
62. What’s the author’s attitude towards the overusing of high-tech devices?
A. Neutral. B. Skeptical. C. Disapproving. D. Sympathetic.