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  3. The initial impact of computers was in the area of entertainment. If you walked by a video arcade in the early 1980s, you could

The initial impact of computers was in the area of entertainment. If you walked by a video arcade in the early 1980s, you could

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问题     The initial impact of computers was in the area of entertainment. If you walked by a video arcade in the early 1980s, you could not have failed to notice that the use of video games was growing at what some considered an alarming rate. In 1981 the movie industry grossed $3 billion, video games took in an estimated $6 billion. That gives you some idea of just how big the computer industry had become. Video games employ the same technology as personal computers, and indeed many who bought personal computers did so primarily for playing games at home, thus saving their quarters. Though video games are not as popular as they were a few years ago, they did provide consumer with their first real reason to buy PCs.
    A more recent computer innovation, desktop publishing, supplies one good reason for those who write for a living to buy a PC. Desktop publishing is eceptively simple description for an extremely complex group of hardware and software tools. You can now write text, edit text, draw illustrations, incorporate photographs, design page layouts, and print a finished document with a relatively inexpensive computer and laser printer. Although the new technology offers new freedom, there is a price to be paid for this freedom. With total control comes total responsibility. In fact, the issue of social responsibility in our new computer age has long been a topic of debate among computer enthusiasts. Some people are concerned with the long-term social effects of the so-called computer revolution. Ironically, many PC pioneers who built and marketed the first machines were 60s-style advocates of social change. They claim that while personal computer technology has the potential to make society more equal, it’s having the opposite effect since upper-middle-class people can afford them and lower-class people cannot.
    In addition, the ways that computers are used to monitor the activities of their users have evoked anxiety about the machine. Over 7 million Americans now have their work paced, controlled, and monitored by computers. A computer is more restrictive and powerful in the way it controls people than the old-fashioned assembly line. This can lead to what some have called "tech-stress". Irritated eyes, back problems, and other physical symptoms have also been associated with the extensive use of computers. Although the personal computer may not have had the impact some predicted a decade age, the combination of computer technology with satellites and cable does promise innovations in the mass media that would have seemed astonishing just a few short years ago.
In the long run, the social effect of computers is that______.
选项 A、it controls people’s life
B、it brings about a more equal society
C、it might lengthen the distance between upper-middle-class people and lower-class people
D、it leads to a profound change in the mass media
答案D
解析 根据文章的第三段的最后一句话，我们可以看到电脑工业给大众传媒带来了革新。所以，正确答案应当为[D]。
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