Ejercicio Modelo A - 1 · Inglés PAU Navarra Ordinaria 2021

Modelo A

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO YOUR PHONE?

The first thing Alfredo Santos does when he wakes up each morning is check his iPhone. The rest of the day, the 16-year-old from New York City can't seem to put the device down, whether he's in class, at the dinner table, or lying in bed trying to fall asleep. “If I can feel my phone in my pocket, I just want to take it out and check it,” says Santos, a 10th grader at New York Harbor School. Santos is far from alone in succumbing to the constant itch to check an Instagram feed, view a friend's latest Snapchat story, or play another round of Word Cookies. On average, Americans check their phones once every 12 minutes.

Many psychologists, teachers, and parents have long worried that teens are spending too much time on their phones, but now, even some people within the tech industry are saying that their products, which were designed to get you hooked, are too difficult to put down. In January, two of Apple's largest investors wrote an open letter to the company pressuring Apple to do more to combat what many people see as a growing health crisis among young people: phone addiction. “The days of just throwing technology out there and washing your hands of the potential impact are over”, they explained.

There are millions of different apps available on Androids and iPhones, and they're all competing for attention. After all, the more time users spend on an app, the more companies will pay to advertise on them. The people designing these apps are very cunning and they're doing everything they can to keep us engaged. Some companies even apply neuroscience to find ways to get users' attention. At Neurons Inc., a Danish company that Facebook and others have used, researchers measure the electrical activity of people's brains while they're on an app to see which features bring them the most joy and keep them most engaged. Efforts like these seem to be working—perhaps too well. According to a 2016 survey by Common Sense Media, half of teens say they feel addicted to their phones.

1. Answer these questions about the text. Use your own words wherever possible. [2 points, 1 each]

a)

Why did two Apple investors write to the company?

b)

How does Neurons Inc. apply neuroscience?