Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the option that best fits each of the numbered...

Digital loneliness has emerged as one of the more unsettling paradoxes of contemporary life. Never before have people been able to maintain such constant contact across distance, yet many report a persistent sense of emotional disconnection. The problem is not that online interaction is unreal, but that it often encourages forms of contact that are rapid, fragmented and easy to sustain at a superficial level. As a result, individuals may remain socially visible while lacking the deeper recognition (18) __________.

Part of what makes this condition difficult to detect is that digital communication can feel intensely active. Messages are exchanged, updates are acknowledged and presence is continually signalled. Yet activity should not be confused with intimacy. Platforms tend to reward responsiveness, self-presentation and continuous availability, habits that may gradually reshape what users expect from one another. In such environments, relationships can begin to be judged less by trust or mutual understanding than by speed, frequency and online affirmation, (19) __________.

This does not mean that digital forms of communication are inherently damaging. For many people, they are indispensable. The difficulty arises when convenient interaction begins to displace more demanding forms of attention. That is one reason (20) __________. If digital life is to enrich rather than weaken human connection, users may need to think more carefully about how they communicate, what kinds of absence they tolerate and (21) __________. In that sense, addressing digital loneliness may depend less on withdrawing from technology altogether than on developing habits of use that preserve depth, (22) __________.