88. Reading Skills Comprehension: Social Pressures

Social Pressures

Read the passages given below and answer the questions that follow them:                          

Social pressures are forcing people to cut back on their sleep, contributing to a ‘global sleep crisis’, according to a new study based on research collected through a smartphone app.

 It enabled scientists from the University of Michigan to track sleep patterns around the world — gathering data about how age, gender and the amount of natural light to which people are exposed affect sleep patterns in 100 countries — and better understand how cultural pressures can override biological rhythms.

“The effects of society on sleep remain largely unquantified,” says the study published on Friday in the journal Science Advances. “We find that social pressures weaken and/or conceal biological drives in the evening, leading individuals to delay their bedtime and shorten their sleep.”

Lack of sleep is mostly affected by the time people go to bed, the study found. Middle-aged men get the least amount of sleep, less than the recommended seven to eight hours. Women sleep 30 minutes longer than men on average by going to bed earlier and rising later, and that people exposed longer to natural light every day often go to bed earlier.

It also found that age was the main factor determining the amount of sleep.

The research is based on data collected through the free smartphone app Entrain. Scientists asked some 6,000 people, 15 years and older to send anonymous data about sleep, wake-up and lighting environment, enabling the scientists to obtain a large amount of data about sleep patterns worldwide.

The app also asks users to provide information about their age, gender, country and time zone.

Questions                                                                                                                  

1. Social pressures are forcing people……………..

2. It has contributed………… crisis.

3. Age, gender and natural light affect…………….

4. Individuals who delay their bedtime shorten ……………..

5. Middle-aged men get ……………sleep.

6. Women sleep 30 minutes longer ……………..

7. People exposed longer to natural light every day often……………..

8. Age is the main factor that determines………….

Answers

1 .to cut back their sleep

2. to a global sleep

3. sleep patterns

4. their sleep

5. the least amount of

6. than men

7. go to bed earlier

8. the amount of sleep

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