The QR-code menu- which you access by scanning a black-and-white square with your smartphone-has taken off. It may dominate going forward.

For restaurants, QR-code menus offer potential benefits beyond putting germ-averse (厌恶细菌的) diners at greater ease. In the near future, rather than offer the same unchanging selections to every diner, restaurants might employ dynamic menus from which dishes disappear as the kitchen runs out.

For diners, however, QR-code menus are not really an advance. You may just be checking to see what you want your next drink to be, but from there it’s easy to start checking texts and emails. Even if everyone resists the temptation (诱惑) to check an incoming text message, merely having a phone out on the table makes a meal less fun for all involved. In the study “Smartphone Use Undermines Enjoyment of Face-to-Face Social Interactions”, the social-psychology researcher Ryan Dwyer and his colleagues randomly assigned some people to keep their phones out when dining with friends and others to put it away. “We found that groups assigned to use their phones enjoyed the experience less than groups that did not use their phones,” Dwyer said, “primarily due to the fact that participants with phones were more distracted.”

QR-code menus reduce privacy, too. Many of the codes “are actually generated by a different company that collects, uses, and then often shares your personal information,” the ACLU has warned.

“In fact, companies that provide QR codes to restaurants like to brag (吹嘘) all the personal information you are sharing along with that food order: your location, your demographics such as gender and age group, and other information about you and your behavior.”

The next few years may determine to what degree the restaurant of the future embraces the digital era or conserves the traditional focus on sociability and connection by deliberately avoiding it. There’s one thing for sure: their success is not appointed in advance.

【小题1】Which kind of menu may a restaurant offer in the near future?

A．A paper menu.

B．A clean menu.

C．A changeable menu.

D．A personalized menu.

【小题2】How does the QR-code menu affect diners’ dining experience?

A．It forces them to check texts.

B．It takes their attention away.

C．It offers a discount.

D．It recommends better drinks.

【小题3】What can be inferred from paragraph 4?

A．QR-code menus will be forbidden.

B．Restaurants tend to share diners’ location.

C．QR codes aim to collect diners’ personal information.

D．Scanning QR-code menus may put diners at risk.

【小题4】What does the author tend to tell us according to the text?

A．Problems brought by QR-code menus.

B．Restaurants’ difficulties in the digital era.

C．Diners’ concerns about privacy exposure.

D．Technology challenges of QR-code menus.