ead the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 37 to 43.
Los Angeles dancer, Brian Perez, was eating out with his friends one evening when suddenly everyone went quiet. To his horror, he saw that the reason for this was that people were checking their phones. Realising he had to do something to stop this, Brian made a rather daring suggestion. What if they all put their gadgets in a pile in the middle of the table until they had finished the meal? If anyone picked up their phone, that person would have to pay the whole bill. And so, it is said, the game of 'phone stacking' was born.
The necessity for action like this highlights a major problem in today's society: our inability to disconnect from technology. But while Brian's idea deals with the obsession in a social context, measures also need to be taken at home. Some people drop their smartphones into a box the moment they arrive home, which gives them the chance to interact with the people they live with.
A less drastic solution is to ban electronic devices at certain times of day when the whole family is likely to be together, for example at meal times. This can be hard for everyone. On a normal day, however, dinner takes less than an hour, and the benefits of exchanging opinions with the rest of the family certainly makes up for the time spent offline.
Taking a break from technology is one thing, but knowing when to turn off a device is another. This is where a digital curfew comes in handy, a set time when all devices must be put away.
And then it's time for bed. One of the best ways of ensuring you can sleep at night is to ban electronic devices altogether from the bedroom. With technology out of the room, a line has been drawn between daytime and sleep time, which enables us to switch off ourselves and drift off to sleep.
