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  3. The economy may be troubled, but one area is thriving: social media. They beg

The economy may be troubled, but one area is thriving: social media. They beg

游客2023-12-26  18
问题    The economy may be troubled, but one area is thriving: social media. They begin with Facebook and extend through a dizzying array of companies that barely existed five years ago: Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, Yammer — and the list goes on. These companies are mostly private, but have attracted the ardent attention of Wall Street and investors, with Facebook now worth purportedly US$75 billion and Groupon valued at close to US$25 billion.
   There can be little doubt that these companies enrich their founders as well as some investors. But do they add anything to overall economic activity? While jobs in social media are growing fast, there were only about 21,000 listings last spring, a tiny fraction of the 150 million-member U.S. workforce. So do social-media tools enhance productivity or help us bridge the wealth divide? Or are they simply entertaining socially, and diverting us when it comes to national economic health?
   The answers are vital, because billions of dollars in investment capital are being spent on these ventures, and if we are to have a productive future economy, that capital needs to grow the economic pie — and not just among the elite of Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
   The problem is that these tools are so new that it is extremely difficult to answer the questions definitively. Flash back nearly 20 years and the same question was being asked about the first Internet wave. Were Netscape and the Web enhancing our economy, or were people just spending more time at work checking out ESPN.com? Official statistics weren’t designed to capture the benefits, and didn’t capture them until statistics experts at the Federal Reserve, urged on by Alan Greenspan, refined the way they measured productivity. As a result of these somewhat controversial innovations, the late 1990s became a period of substantial technology-driven gains.
   It is possible that the same gap exists today, that social-media tools are indeed laying the groundwork for new industries and jobs, but aren’t yet registering on the statistical radar. Many companies believe social media make them more competitive. Ford and Zappos, for instance, use Twitter to market their products and address consumer complaints.
   One big question is what proportion of that benefit will be captured economically by consumers vs. corporations. Sure, social media allow people to compare prices and quality and assess which companies are good to work for and where jobs might be. They also may enhance education and idea sharing, but the caveat is that the people who use these tools are the ones with higher education and income to spend on technology, not the tens of millions whose position in today’s world has eroded so sharply. According to a recent Pew Foundation study, only 45 percent of adults making less than US$30,000 have access to broadband, which is an essential component of using content-rich social media effectively.
   And that is the rub. Like so many things these days, social media contribute to economic bifurcation. Dynamic companies are benefiting from these tools, even if the gains are tough to nail down in specific figures. Many individuals are benefiting too, using LinkedIn to find jobs and Groupon to find deals. But now, the irony is that social media widen the social divide, making it even harder for the have-nots to navigate. They allow those with jobs to do them more effectively and companies that are profiting to profit more. But so far, they have done little to aid those who are being left behind. They are, in short, business as usual. [br] Which of the following statements about social-media companies is NOT true?
选项 A、Most of them are private.
B、Their value is increasing fast.
C、They are receiving huge sums of investment.
D、They contribute greatly to the labor market.
答案 D
解析 推断题。第1段第3句提到这些公司大多是私营，引起了华尔街和投资者的热情关注，可以排除A和C。第2段第1句说到这些公司让他们的创始人和一些投资者收获颇丰，结合第1段最后一句用Facebook和Groupon的例子，可以推断他们的价值快速增长，所以排除B。第2段第3句用数据说明社交媒体为劳动市场提供的职位仅占全美劳工总数的一小部分，由此可以判断D的表述不正确，故选D。
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