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Practice Reading: Multiple Choice, Multiple Answers
ID: #35788
Online socialising
Most previous decades saw significant increases in the amount of traffic on the roads, but in the 21st century a new trend has become evident. In some industrialised countries, traffic levels and car ownership are falling. It would be wrong to claim that the car industry has never seen this before. In the 1970s, for example, a rise in oil prices meant that owning a car became too expensive for some households. But this time the change is more likely to be due to long-term social trends. Many people, or certainly those who live in town, have more facilities available in their immediate environment, which has reduced the need for long drives. Indeed, the rise of online retail often means that a trip to the mall is no longer needed at all. The presence of the Internet at home means more telecommuting, and even online socialising can be seen as a substitute for car trips. There are also generational differences. In the past, owning a car was often seen as a milestone on the way to maturity and success, like buying your first home, but young people today are not so attached to this idea of cars and homes as status symbols. How these changes will develop over the next decades is unclear but it is entirely possible that, thirty years hence, private car ownership will have become something of a rarity.
What does the text suggest as possible causes for this century’s decline in car use?
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