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  3. Of all the depressing statistics about a lifetime of consumer existence, this may be the most distressing: each of us is destine

Of all the depressing statistics about a lifetime of consumer existence, this may be the most distressing: each of us is destine

admin2012-03-23  17
问题     Of all the depressing statistics about a lifetime of consumer existence, this may be the most distressing: each of us is destined to spend roughly 1. 2 years on hold. More than a year of your life will be spent on the phone listening to Musk stations like Aura, Moonscapes, and Tropical Breezes while being serially apologized to by robotic voices better calibrated to taunt than sympathize.
    As you might have feared, there’s nothing random about this common, near-death experience. Modern corporations, with the help of psychologists, have actually made a science out of keeping you on the line, using harmonic soporifics in an effort to subdue your rage. They want you to enjoy the experience—or at least hate it less—in the hope that you will buy what they are selling when you finally get the chance. But where did the idea that music could be a tonic to calm angry consumers come from? What makes us happier. , silence, music, or estimated wait times? And does the practice of interrupting hold music every 30 seconds with a message apologizing for, well, keeping you on hold, make the situation any better?
    Simon Morrison, a musicologist at Princeton University, says that we can thank a French composer named Erik Satire for the birth of background music. Though it hardly seems possible that the Musk pumped into malls could actually influence shoppers, the truth is, alas, that it does. James Cellars, a marketing professor at the University of Cincinnati, says that music can have an impact on a wide array of customers’ behaviors, changing their perception of time, conditioning them to associate a song with a brand, or limiting their ability to critically analyze a potential purchase due to musical distraction. Our brains have a finite bandwidth for taking in and processing information, and clogging that bandwidth with music is sometimes enough to prevent us from making rational purchasing decisions, or worrying about the time.
    An easy-listening version of "Rock and Roll All Nite" might lower your barrier to spending $ 30 on gimmicky boxers, but not all music alleviates the frustrating experience of waiting on hold. Kellaris says that while musical distraction often causes time to feel like it’s passing more quickly, particularly dull, or overly familiar, music can actually make the wait feel longer. Familiar music may act as a sort of "Zip file", says Kellaris, referring to the common format computers use to compress large volumes of data into a smaller package. "If you hear an excerpt of a familiar piece of music, it might cue recall of the entire piece. " Kellaris also cautions that numerous factors, including mindset and setting—and in one of his studies, even gender—determine the effect that background music has on us.
    Anta Rafaela, a professor at the Israel Institute of Technology, and her former graduate students Nina Munich or and Liad Weiss have looked specifically into what keeps us on the line—and happy— when we’re on hold. In a paper Munich or and Rafaela compared hold music, estimated wait times, and recorded apologies for their effectiveness. In the first of two experiments, Munichor and Rafaeli found that callers who were given information about their place in line reported more positive experiences than those who were played background music. And as for recorded apologies? They can make the situation worse, said Rafaeli, since they interrupt background music without providing any useful information. In the second experiment, Munich or and Rafaeli found that the feeling of progressing toward the front of the line, rather than the perception of a short wait, improved caller reactions the most.
    Another surprising finding, said Rafaela, is that interactive voice response (IVR) systems can actually assuage our on-hold rage more effectively than music. Again, the most important thing is the perception of moving toward a goal. "People like to complain about these Virus," said Rafaela, "but usually, I think, the complaints are because the systems are too long and too complicated. "
    All of which raises some disturbing possibilities. Would it be ethical for a company to lie to you about your position in line if it made you feel better and promoted commerce by exposing you to a sales pitch, say, for cheap appetizers when you call the local pizza-delivery joint? What about charging you a fee to jump to the head of the line? The answers are not entirely clear, in part because the science of being on hold is still young and its ethical concerns largely unexplored.
    What is clear is that each day we grow more accustomed to life on hold. By the time intelligent robots rise up and become our overlords, they probably won’t have to subjugate us, Terminator style—they’ll simply lull us into servitude with Ninjas and pitch-perfect estimates of our place in the queue. Perhaps then we’ll yearn for the good old days, when, at the very least, we got an apology for the inconvenience.
What does the author mean by saying "there’s nothing random about this common, near-death experience"?
选项 A、Music like Aura and Tropical Breezes is carefully chosen for festivals.
B、The music is played on purpose to keep consumers on hold.
C、Spending 1. 2 years of the lifetime on the line is our destiny.
D、Modern corporations bring us near-death experience.
答案B
解析 细节题。回文定位到第二段首句。选项[B]“播放音乐是为了让顾客等待呼叫时不挂断”，与题干“这种常见的，烦得要死的经历(听着音乐等待呼叫)并非偶然(而是有目的地设计好的)”相吻合，故为答案。选项[A]“Aura and Tropical Breezes等音乐是为节日精心准备的”，而原文第一段指出这些音乐是在等待接通电话时播放的，故排除；选项[C]“一生花费1. 2年等待呼叫是我们的命运”，而原文第一段中说的是我们一生中注定有大约1. 2年的时间在等待呼叫，选项说法不够严谨，故排除；选项[D]“现代企业带给我们的是濒死的经历”，而原文第二段第二句说的是现代企业将如何让顾客耐心等待呼叫进行了科学的研究，况且“near-death experience”仅仅是比喻说法，故排除。
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