A funny thing happened on the way to the communications revolution: we stopped talking to one another.
I was walking in the park with a friend recently, and his cell phone rang, interrupting our conversation. There we were walking and talking on a beautiful sunny day and... I became invisible, absent from the conversation. The telephone used to connect you to the absent. Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent. Why is it that the more connected we get, the more disconnected I feel? Every advance in communications technology is a tragedy to the closeness of human interaction（互动）. With email and instant messaging over the internet, we can now communicate without seeing or talking to one another. With voice mail, you can conduct entire conversations without ever reaching anyone. If my mom has a question, I just leave the answer on her machine.
As almost every contact we can imagine between human beings gets automated（自动化）, the alienation index（疏远指数） goes up. You can't even call a person to get the phone number of another person any more. Directory assistance is almost always fully automated.
I am not against modern technology. I own a cell phone, an ATM card, a voice mail system, and an email account. Giving them up isn't wise... they're a great help to us. It's some of their possible consequences that make me feel uneasy.
More and more. I find myself hiding behind email to do a job meant for conversation. Or being relieved that voice mail picked up because I didn't really have time to talk. The industry devoted to helping me keep in touch is making me lonelier ...or at least facilitating my antisocial instincts.
So I've put myself on technology restriction: no instant messaging with people who live near me, no cell phoning in the presence of friends, no letting the voice mail pick up when I'm at home.
小题1:Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?
A．The Advance of Communications Technology
B．The Consequences of modern Technology
C．The Story of Communications Revolution
D．The Automation of Modern Communications小题2:The sentence “Now it makes people sitting next to you feel absent” means that ________.
A．the people sitting beside you have to go away to receive a phone call
B．you can hardly get in touch with the people sitting beside you
C．modern technology makes it hard for people to have a face-to-face talk
D．people can now go to work without going to the office小题3:The writer feels that the use of modern communications is ________.
A．satisfying
B．encouraging
C．disappointing
D．embarrassing小题4:The passage implies that ________.
A．modern technology is bridging the people
B．modern technology is separating the people
C．modern technology is developing too fast
D．modern technology is interrupting our communication