Passage Three

For anyone who doubts that the texting revolution is upon us， consider this: The average 13-to 17-year-old sends and receives 3,339 texts a month一more than 100 per day, according to the Nielsen Co., the media research firm. Adults are catching up. People from ages 45 to 54 sent and received 323 texts a month in the second quarter of 2010, up 75% from a year ago, Nielsen says.

Behind the texting explosion is a fundamental shift in how we view our mobile devices. That they are phones is increasingly beside the point.

Nielsen analyzed cellphone bills of 60,000 mobile subscribers and found adults made and received an average of 188 mobile phone calls a month in the 2010 period, down 25% from the same period three years earlier. Average monthly “talk minutes” fell 5% for the period compared with 2009; among 18- to 24-year-olds， the decline was 17%.

Text messages take up less bandwidth than phone calls and cost less. A text message's content is so condensed that it routinely fails to convey the writer's tone and affect. The more we text， the greater the opportunity for misunderstanding.

A recent survey of 2,000 college students asked about their attitudes toward phone calls and text-messaging and found the students9 predominant goal was to pass along information in as little time, with as little small talk, as possible. “What they like most about their mobile devices is that they can reach other people,” says Naomi Baron， a professor of linguistics at American University in Washington, D.C., who conducted the survey. “What they like least is that other people can reach them.”

Part of what's driving the texting surge among adults is the popularity of social media. Sites like Twitter, with postings of no more than 140 characters, are creating and reinforcing the habit of communicating in micro-bursts. And these sites also are pumping up sheer volume. Many Twitter and Facebook devotees create settings that alert them, via text message, every time a tweet or message is earmarked for them.

Economics has much to do with texting's popularity. Text messages cost carriers less than traditional mobile voice transmissions, and so they cost users less.

Texting's rise over conversation is changing the way we interact. We default to text to relay difficult information. We stare at our phone when we want to avoid eye contact. Rather than make plans in advance, we engage in what Rich Ling, a researcher for the European telecom company Telenor and a professor at IT University in Copenhagen who studies teens and technology， has named “micro-coordination”一I'll txt u in l0mins when I know wh/restrnt.”

Texting saves us time, but it steals from quiet reflection. “When people have a mobile device and have even the smallest increment of extra time, they will communicate with someone in their life,”says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

Of course, the phone conversation will never be completely obsolete. Deal makers and other professionals still spend much of the day on the phone. Researchers say people are more likely to use text-based communications at the preliminary stages of projects. The phone comes into play when there are multiple options to consider or binding decisions to be made.

The underlined phrase “beside the point” in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to ________.

The data mentioned in Paragraphs 1 and 3 intends to ________.

According to the text, texting may produce problems except that________.

Which of the following is not the reason for texting explosion?

Which of the following can be the best title for the passage?