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Read the following passage and answer the three questions that follow.
Multitasking has been found to increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol as well as the fight-or-flight hormone adrenaline, which can overstimulate your brain and cause mental fog or scrambled thinking. Multitasking creates a dopamine addiction feedback loop, effectively rewarding the brain for losing focus and for constantly searching for external stimulation. To make matters worse, the prefrontal cortex has a novelty bias, meaning that its attention can be easily hijacked by something new—the proverbial shiny objects we use to entice infants, puppies, and kittens. The irony here for those of us who are trying to focus amid competing activities is clear: The very brain region we need to rely on for staying on task is easily distracted. We answer the phone, look up something on the Internet, check our email, send an SMS, and each of these things tweaks the novelty-seeking, reward-seeking centers of the brain, causing a burst of endogenous opioids (no wonder it feels so good!), all to the detriment of our staying on task. It is the ultimate empty-caloried brain candy. Instead of reaping the big rewards that come from sustained, focused effort, we instead reap empty rewards from completing a thousand little sugarcoated tasks.
In the old days, if the phone rang and we were busy, we either didn’t answer or we turned the ringer off. When all phones were wired to a wall, there was no expectation of being able to reach us at all times—one might have gone out for a walk or be between places, and so if someone couldn’t reach you (or you didn’t feel like being reached), that was considered normal. Now more people have cell phones than have toilets. This has created an implicit expectation that you should be able to reach someone when it is convenient for you, regardless of whether it is convenient for them. This expectation is so ingrained that people in meetings routinely answer their cell phones to say, “I’m sorry, I can’t talk now, I’m in a meeting.” Just a decade or two ago, those same people would have let a landline on their desk go unanswered during a meeting, so different were the expectations for reachability.
What does the author BEST intend to convey when he says, “Now more people have cell phones than have toilets?”
“Now more people have cell phones than have toilets.” By this, the author implies that even the people who don't have toilets available to them have access to smartphones, making it so that there are now no reasons not to reply to a call.
We are to find the intention behind the author's statement. It can be understood that the author is saying that people want to be connected at all times now, making phones more prevalent and common than a basic necessity like a toilet.
Let's take a look at the options:
Option A: This most closely captures the reason behind the author writing the sentence. The author wants to convey that people will be connected and reach out to each other at their whim. Is so pronounced that even people who do not have access to toilets have somehow managed access to cellphones.
Option B: The statement has little to do with the "need to be connected" and more to do with the idea and use of cell phones themselves
Option C: While taken in solitude this might seem like a good options but we an see from the rest of the passage that the author is not really presenting cell phones as a necessity but rather a choice which people ar making, such as picking up the phone during a meeting. The sentence in context also does not talk about necessity but the priorities that people have now
Option D:This is way too limited in scope. Further, the author does not talk about the tie of use but access.
Option E: Although this statement would be true, and the author would agree with this, this is not the purpose or the intention behind the sentence. The sentence has to do more with the prevalence than the sheer number.
Therefore, Option A is the correct answer.
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