essay on life today is better than in the past

Life Is Better Today than in the Past Essay

Introduction, how life in modern times different from that of the past, society then and now.

Although most individuals may argue that the world is at the verge of destruction, because of the increased civil wars, environmental problems such as global warming, and the ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the quality of life in the contemporary society is far much better than it was fifty years ago.

It is very hard to imagine how life was fifty years ago when most products of technology were not present. As compared to historical communities, present societies are more developed, democratic, diverse, and all-inclusive. In addition, people’s health has improved; individuals can interact freely; the transportation system is better, and communication is easy and fast.

Therefore, although every innovation and development cannot lack some form of negative effects, the world is a better place than it was fifty years ago; hence, the need for every individual to appreciate and always struggle to make the world a better place for both present and future generations.

One primary fact that every individual should attest to is that, as compared to fifty ago, nowadays the quality of healthcare is better and more responsive to the ever-changing health condition of the world.

Unlike in the past when diseases such as small pox, measles, pneumonia, and even HIV and AIDS were a threat to the human existence, presently, majority f these diseases can be cured, and for those that cannot be cured there are numerous control measures or vaccines to control their spreading.

This like scenario has been made possible by the increasing research endeavours in the medicine world aimed at making the world a healthy place. As a result of the improved health condition, nowadays individuals can afford to live long and productive life spans with little fears of the likelihoods of a disease arising that will lack a cure.

Although some individuals may argue that some diseases are incurable; hence, to some extent the world is stagnant somewhere in terms of health, it will be so illogical to compare the health status of the world fifty years with the present situation, where even life supporting machines exist.

In addition to an improved quality of health, because of the numerous products of technology such as the computer, numerous aspects of life have improved greatly.

With the internet nowadays individuals can send or receive information from any part of the world within short time spans. Moreover, with numerous products of technology such as the television, presently individuals are always updated with any occurrences and information from any part of the world.

This cannot be compared to fifty years ago when the few radio and cable television sets that were available could only transmit their news within short distances. On the other hand, in the present world there exist numerous modern conveniences that have made life easy.

For example, with the presence of microwaves, fridges, gas burners, washing machines, printers, fax machines, video decoders, and many other office and home electronic gadgets, individuals can perform all the office and home chores easily, faster, and more efficiently.

Another aspect of life that is far much better than it was some fifty years ago is the quality of education. With the internet and other forms of “sophisticated” modes of learning for example, distance education, e-learning, and virtual classrooms, nowadays individuals are able to learn from any geographical positions.

In addition, nowadays societies appreciate the importance of education to the wellbeing of the society, because of the numerous research endeavours aimed at improving the quality of life that are included in most present scientific studies.

As compared to some fifty years ago, the literacy level in most present societies is very high, as most present governments offer free basic education to its citizenry. As a result of this, the level of self-conscious and self-esteem is better in present societies, because more individuals are able to provide for their families using the practical concepts learnt in both formal and informal educational settings.

On the other hand, life in present societies is better, because of the increased respect of every individual’s fundamental civil rights. Most present day governments are democratic and respect the right of its citizenry, something that was rare in most past societies, because of the nature of power that was enjoyed by the ruling class.

Closely related with increased respect of civil rights, is the ever reducing racism and segregation on racial, social class or background basis. Nowadays societies have learnt to appreciate and live in harmony with one another; hence, the nature of peace that is enjoyed by the world and the freedom of movement from a society or country to another.

In conclusion, considering the present condition of the world economically, technologically, socially, and politically, the world of today is a better place to live in as compared to fifty years ago.

This is because modern conveniences and technological innovations have revolutionized how human do everything is done, without which life could be very hard to live. Although people were comfortable with their lifestyles fifty years ago, possibly it is because they had no knowhow any of the modern developments could have made their work better.

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IvyPanda. (2018, May 27). Life Is Better Today than in the Past Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/life-today-is-better-than-fifty-years-ago/

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IvyPanda . 2018. "Life Is Better Today than in the Past Essay." May 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/life-today-is-better-than-fifty-years-ago/.

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IvyPanda . "Life Is Better Today than in the Past Essay." May 27, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/life-today-is-better-than-fifty-years-ago/.

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Life is better today than it was 100 years ago. Do you agree?

Enjoyment of life nowadays and in the past.

Holt Educational Consultant - / 15347 Feb 17, 2020 #2 This essay cannot be properly reviewed based on the scoring rubic criteria due to lack of word count. The essay does not meet the minimum 250 word requirement. Due to the missing word count, deductions will be applied in a manner that can affect the overall scoring consideration. The opening paraphrase and the concluding paraphrase are incomplete. These do not fully reflect the discussion requirements. It is better if you do not use a counting system to represent your discussion. Using a clear topic sentence at the start of every paragraph would better assist your C&C score since you will immediately start with a clear topic reference in each body paragraph. Please remember that there is a minimum 3 sentence requirement per paragraph. When you have only 2 sentences, you fall under the required paragraph number and will get a lower score in terms of GRA considerations. Overall, while the essay has an acceptable discussion, the existing forced errors, based on the rubic, will bring the score of this essay to less than a 5. Maybe a 4 or 4.5. You are close to getting a passing score. You just need to work a little harder to provide an improved discussion presentation in your next practice exercise.

hallynguyen13579 3 / 4 Feb 17, 2020 #3 1, I think your word count will be not enough so you need to improve. 2, For the first argument, you mention 'health'. I think it is a good factor to write about. However, to make your essay persuasive, there is no other option better than including factual numbers or events. In this case, you can search figures related to Corona virus and Sars to compare how better the medical systems work in this day and age to save people from outbreaks. 3, For the second argument of entertainment, it will be helpful if you can compare with your parents' time when they often lacked interesting tools of today entertainment to make it more exact with the question essay and to lengthen your writing.

essay on life today is better than in the past

Intellectual Roundtable

Asking — and answering — life's interesting questions

Is Life Today Better Than In The Past?

If you were able to accurately evaluate life today against life one hundred years ago, one thousand years ago, or even 10 thousand years ago, would we be able to determine which is better?

Humans have a tendency to overvalue what they know. We find it easy to believe that our country is the best. Or that our mother’s cooking can’t be beat. The neighborhood we grew up in was better than any other.

Similarly, we may believe that life today is better than the way people lived in centuries past. But is that actually true?

It is certainly true that our mastery of travel makes just about every corner of the globe is accessible. I can pack a bag, catch a flight, and be halfway around the world within 24 hours. (Assuming, of course, no travel restrictions.)

A trip to an average grocery store yields a remarkable variety of produce, and an almost dizzying array of processed food. The internet makes access to information nearly ubiquitous, and allows us to communicate with people without thought to geographical limitations. Lifespans are longer, literacy rates are higher, some previously deadly diseases have been all but eliminated.

However, each of these things have downsides. Easy travel is at the expense of burning fossil fuels, which is contributing to climate change. The same can be said about produce that travels thousands of miles to those well-stocked grocery stores. And all that processed food has brought about a crisis in obesity.

While communication is easier with the internet, social media apps are making us more polarized and as such we hear each other less. What good is a longer lifespan if we use those extra hours sitting in traffic jams and overall leading more stressed lifestyles?

Are the negatives worth the positives? Is life today better than in the past?

Related questions: How have we changed? Past, present, or future? Is it fair to judge the past with morals of today? Are we too busy?

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4 thoughts on “is life today better than in the past”.

In many aspects — technological gains, the slow progress of recognizing human rights, worldwide abject poverty steadily decreasing — things are getting better. I cannot dispute this, nor would I want to.

But today, I’m deciding to focus on the moral life of America when asking, “Is life today better than in the past?”

Our addiction to independence seems focused on rights without accepting responsibilities. And we dare not challenge this addiction without a gaggle of politicians and rabble-rousers derisively shouting, “Socialism!” to inflame their base.

Let’s face it. America, when considering virtue, is sorely deficient. As a society, we don’t ask, “How much is enough?” We too often think of strangers as enemies, especially if they come from other countries. And, humility is not one of our strong suits.

A few points to make this clearer: – While we are only 4.25% of the world’s population, we consume 24% of the energy. – We don’t change our consumptive behaviors, even though California is burning and hurricanes are hammering the Gulf Coast, saying nothing of the droughts we are forcing upon, say, South Africa or the island nations we are slowing making disappear. – A good portion of Americans can’t be bothered to wear a mask, even though it may mean we are saving a loved one’s life.

Recall that once we joined the allies in WWII, households brought in their metal to be melted and repurposed for war efforts, many people grew a significant portion of their foods in “Victory Gardens” to assist in nationwide rationing, and our workforce was transformed as men went to war, women took to the factories.

We remade society to address the crisis.

Are we transforming America and coming together to deal with climate change or the pandemic? Far from it! Instead, we are experiencing a tremendous and dangerous divide.

What will it take to make for an engaged and responsible citizenry? When will we accept that our actions impact those around us and those living in other countries?

America, wake up!

Well stated, Michael. I think it would be beneficial to discover why our sense of community responsibility has so declined. I know we don’t absolutely need to know the cause to ignite a solution, but I think that it helps. My parents and their friends did so much in the community I grew up in. Some of that involvement still exists, but it seems as if people are too busy these days, or they invest their time in frivolous activities that merely entertain or relax them. It’s time for some inspiration from local people as well as state and national people to chip in and make life better for communities and the nation as a whole. Had the national government been able to muster such inspiration, the Covid-19 crisis could have been such a time for Americans to come together. I don’t know that Biden/Harris and their teams are going to be able to change the nay-sayers attitudes and behaviors, but I am hopeful that they can achieve somethings in this area.

I guess it all depends on what your definition of “better” happens to be.

I think we know more, and knowing more is always better (even if we don’t always use that knowledge as we should).

I believe that life is better for most of us in convenience and possibilities than ever before. As for becoming perfectly moral in our behaviors, I don’t think we ever will be because we are still animals and therefore will probably forever retain a bit of wildness. Otherwise we must become robots. We can continue to be kinder, but I think that must include understanding and forgiving ourselves and others for our bit of wildness.

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Worldwide, People Divided on Whether Life Today Is Better Than in the Past

Current economic conditions a key factor in assessing progress

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Acknowledgments
Methodology

Fifty years ago, the world was a very different place. The United States and its allies were locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, personal computers and mobile phones were the stuff of science fiction, and much of the world’s population had yet to experience substantial improvements in life expectancy and material well-being .

Numerous countries found themselves at important crossroads – whether it was military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, civil rights and war protests in the U.S., or Soviet tanks crushing Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring.

How far do people around the globe think they and others like them have come, compared with 50 years ago? Pew Research Center put that question to nearly 43,000 people in 38 countries around the globe this past spring.

At a country level, some of the most positive assessments of progress over the past 50 years are found in Vietnam (88% say life is better today), India (69%) and South Korea (68%) – all societies that have seen dramatic economic transformations since the late 1960s, not to mention the end of armed conflict in the case of Vietnam. A majority in Turkey (65% better) also share a sense of progress over the past five decades. In some of the more developed countries, publics also report that life is better today, including 65% in Japan and Germany, and 64% in the Netherlands and Sweden.

But not everyone is convinced that life today is an improvement over the past. Americans are split on this issue : 41% say life is worse while 37% say better. Meanwhile, half or more in countries ranging from Italy (50%) and Greece (53%) to Nigeria (54%) and Kenya (53%) to Venezuela (72%) and Mexico (68%) say life is worse today.

Events unique to the history of individual countries cannot be ignored when considering why publics are more positive or negative about how the present compares with 50 years ago. However, our analysis also indicates that views of the current economy are a strong indicator of whether people say life for people like them is better today than it was 50 years ago, even when controlling for the demographic factors of income, education, gender and age. Indeed, across the countries analyzed, people with positive views of the current economy are 30 percentage points more likely than those with negative views to say life has improved for people like them. 1

In general, countries that are more upbeat about their national economy are more likely to say life today is better compared with the past. For example, in Vietnam, where 91% say economic conditions are good, a corresponding 88% say life is better for people like them compared with 50 years ago. And in Venezuela, where only 20% say conditions are good, 10% say life is better for people like them. Overall, the correlation between economic assessments and views of the past is quite strong (+0.68).

These are among the major findings of a Pew Research Center survey conducted among 40,448 respondents in 37 countries from Feb. 16 to May 8, 2017. A separate survey in the U.S. was conducted June 27-July 9, 2017, among 2,505 respondents.

Regional variations in assessments of present vs. past

Latin Americans stand out for their widespread negative assessment of progress over the past half-century. Venezuelans and Mexicans (72% and 68% life is worse) are the most downbeat, but nowhere in the region do more than half say life has improved for people like themselves.

Across the Middle East and North Africa, views of life today compared with 50 years ago vary substantially by country. Turkey reports the most progress in the region, with 65% saying life is better, followed by Israel, where 52% say the same about their country. Tunisians, Jordanians and Lebanese tend to say life has gotten worse for people like them, with Tunisians expressing the most widespread negativity (60%).

In sub-Saharan Africa, comparative assessments of present and past are more evenly divided. A median of 46% say life today is worse than five decades ago, compared with 42% who think life is better. Positive ratings of progress range from 47% “better” in South Africa to 36% in Ghana.

Nigeria and Kenya are the only countries surveyed in the region where more than half say life is worse (54% and 53%, respectively).

Europeans tend to see the past half-century as a period of progress. A regional median of 53% describes life as better today, compared with 30% who take the opposite view. Upbeat assessments are most common in Germany (65% better), the Netherlands (64%), Sweden (64%), Poland (62%) and Spain (60%). Greeks (53% worse) and Italians (50%) are the least convinced that life is better than 50 years ago.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to some of the most favorable assessments of progress. Vietnam (88% better) stands out, but views of life today vs. the past are also quite rosy in India (69%), South Korea (68%) and Japan (65%). Filipinos are the least sanguine about progress, with fewer than half (43%) saying life is better.

In North America, Canadians widely report progress over the past five decades (55%) while fewer Americans (37%) say the same about life in their country. In the U.S., Republicans are more likely to say life is better today , compared with Democrats – an attitudinal shift in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president in November 2016.

The more educated are more likely to say life is better

In more than half the countries polled, people with more education say that, for people like them, life is better than it was a half-century ago. The educational divide on whether life is better is greatest in Poland and Peru (both 19 percentage points). But it is also apparent in many European and Asian nations, as well as the U.S. 2

The reverse pattern, with less educated more optimistic about life today, is seen in just two countries: Nigeria (by 23 points) and Turkey (9 points).

While age is not as large a dividing line on whether life is better today, there are some interesting patterns by age across a select group of countries. For example, in the United Kingdom, 66% of those ages 18 to 29 say life is better today, compared with 41% who say this among Brits 50 and older (some of whom might remember what life was actually like back then).

Age differences also appear in Australia, Sweden, the U.S. and Germany among advanced economies, and in South Africa, Ghana and Peru among emerging economies.

There is a reverse pattern on age in South Korea, where 73% among those 50 and older say life is better now compared with 59% who say this among 18- to 29-year-olds. This pattern is also found in Senegal and Venezuela.

Divisions within countries point to perceived gains and loses

In some countries polled, views about who has gained and lost over the past half-century divide sharply along religious or ethnic lines.

In Turkey, 79% of Muslims who observe the five daily prayers ( salah ) that are required under Islam say life is better for people like them compared with 50 years ago. In contrast, only about half (49%) of Turkish Muslims who pray seldom or never at all see the same progress. These divergent views may in part reflect differences in opinion about President Recep Erdogan and his religiously conservative AKP party.

In Nigeria – home to both Muslims and Christians, but now governed by an elected Muslim leader – Muslims are much more enthusiastic about their country’s progress. Nearly three times as many Nigerian Muslims as Christians (62% vs. 22%) say life is better today compared with 50 years ago.

In Israel, 50 years after the Jewish State was victorious in the Six-Day War against a coalition of Arab nations, Israeli Jews are far more convinced than Israeli Arabs that life today is better for people like them. Nearly six-in-ten Jews in Israel say life has improved, compared with only a third of Israeli Arabs who see similar progress.

And in South Africa, there is a sharp racial divide on social progress: Blacks in the country, who a half-century ago were oppressed via the apartheid system, are much more likely to say life is better today for people like them (52%), compared with mixed-race (or “coloured”) and white South Africans (37% and 27%, respectively).

Political divides on life today in Europe

Populism is often associated with nostalgia for an idealized past. In the case of Europe, at least, our survey findings confirm that populists tend to be more enamored of the past than people who look askance at some of the continent’s right-wing populist parties.

For example, Germans who support the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) are 28 percentage points more likely to say that life is worse off for people like them than those who have an unfavorable view of the anti-immigrant party. This pattern also holds in Sweden among supporters of the Swedish Democrats, in France among those with a favorable view of National Front, in the Netherlands among PVV supporters and in the UK among fans of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Ghana and Italy excluded due to insufficient sample size on reported income. U.S. excluded because questions were administered on separate Pew Research Center surveys. ↩
For the purpose of comparing education groups across countries, we standardize education levels based on the United Nations’ International Standard Classification of Education. The lower education category is below secondary education and the higher category is secondary or above in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, Venezuela and Vietnam. The lower education category is secondary education or below and the higher category is postsecondary or above in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, UK and U.S. ↩

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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Life Goals / Contrasting Life in the Past and Now

Contrasting Life in the Past and Now

Category: Life
Topic: Finding Yourself , Life Goals

Pages: 1 (638 words)

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Technology and innovation, communication and connectivity, education and learning, societal norms and values.

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