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Please help! I live in Germany with my wife and three kids. My parents live in the UK. I want my kids
to have as much contact with their grandparents as possible. The kids all use e-mail, Skype and SMS but my parents won't. I've bought them a laptop, paid for broadband, given them both mobile phones and a
digital camera, but they won't use them. My parents say they hate computers and new technology. What
can I do with these "technophobes"?
Daniel, Buremburg, Germany
Actually, the original technophobes were the Luddites, a group of cloth workers in 19th century Britain during the Industrial Revolution. The Luddite cloth workers, who traditionally made cloth by hand, were
worried that machines were going to take away their jobs and way of life. These machines could make
cloth much faster and cheaper than humans. In 1811 and 1812 the Luddites destroyed the machines that
they hated so much, but the British government supported the factory owners. Many Luddites were
arrested. Charlotte Bronte's novel Shirley will tell your parents all about it.
Laura, Valencia, Spain
Laura makes some interesting points, I think. Technophobes has been a common theme in science
fiction. Frankenstein, one of the first science fiction, is a warning of what could happen if humans began
to experiment with human life.
Freda, Copenhagen, Denmark
One thing you could try is to find hardware that is designed for older people to use. An example is the mobiles made by the US company, Jitterbug. Instead of icons and menus the Jitterbug phones ask users
simple "yes/no" questions and have larger keypads. The company realized that there are potentially 100
million older users in the US alone.
Graham, Patras, Greece
1. The underlined part "the technophobes" in the passage refers to ______.
A. those who are ready to try new technology
B. those who are addicted to the Internet
C. those who refuse to use modern technology
D. those who are devoted to inventing new things
2. Which of the following is TRUE of the Luddites?
A. They called themselves the technophobes.
B. They got full support from their factory owners.
C. They preferred to keep their traditional working methods.
D. They were killed by the government.
3. Who has put forward a practical and useful suggestions?
A. Laura.
B. Freda.
C. Daniel.
D. Graham.
4. The passage is probably taken from _____.
A. a personal blog
B. a letter between friends
C. a personal diary
D. a speech on new technology
5. What can we infer from the passage?
A. Daniel would buy her parents a novel written by Shirley.
B. Charlotte Bronte wrote about technophobes in her novel Shirley.
C. Daniel would buy her parents cell phones with icons and menus.
D. Daniel worried about her children using e-mails.
