Question 4: The enhanced role of technology in all aspects of our lives has only been beneficial. To what extent do you agree with this view?

In 2016, there are now a large variety of technological devices that the average person has access to in their everyday lives; so much so that there are now SMART devices that have incorporated the access to lots of different types of technology onto one device.  Since the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990 by Tim Burners-Lee (a computer scientist), the amount of technology has increased rapidly. All of these different types of technology have helps us in the going of our daily lives however, this may be due to the sacrifices we have made of other components and skills which we had or did before.

https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/is-social-media-marketing
-your-most-powerful-tool/

Livelihoods have been change due to an expansion of different types and amounts of technology used on an everyday basis. One beneficial way that technology has affected our lives is by a change in the way that can communicate with one and other. One way communication has changed is by the creation of many types of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat just to name a few are fairly new types of ways we can communicate and share information and images with people that we know. The creation of Facebook and Twitter has meant that people can post pictures or information for their friends to see, keeping friends up to date with what they are doing or thinking at that point in time. Because of this people can feel like they know what people are up to and doing in their lives without having to meet up with them for a chat. People can use these forms of social media from the comfort of their homes or when on the move. People can private message friends so they can chat with them directly. This has made it easier for people to speak to friends if they do not live close, or to get back in contact with old friends that they might have lost contact with earlier in life. Snapchat is another form of social media that means you can send a picture with or without some text to friends around the world. This has also meant that people can send images and text to a friend when having a conversation. All of these types of social media have made it so that you can keep in contact with friends and family from all over the world by the click of a button.

Technology has also changed the way that education is taught by teachers but also by the person themselves. Before technology, if someone wanted to know about a topic they would have to go to the library and read a book to find out the information. In today’s society, if people want to know about a topic they can use the internet on their phone or computer to search it and it will bring up lists of information and articles about the specific topic they searched. This has been beneficial for society as it has meant that information is at the touch of a button, people can quickly and easily search for something without having to ask anyone or take a trip to the library. It has also helped improve teaching as they can use interactive white board in a class room so that they can show video and websites about the subject they are teaching. A teacher who spoke to the Centre For Teaching said “I want it to be very theoretically based and I know exactly what I want my students to learn. I think technology has improved the quality of what we can access.” (https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/library/articles-and-essays/the-teaching-forum/how-technology-enhances-teaching-and-learning/) Teachers can now also share their activity ideas with other teacher on a teaching forum so that other can use their ideas and they can gain new ideas too about the way they could make that topic more interesting for students to learn about.  

One negative about this is that many people now lead more of an ‘online life’ than they do in the real world. Some people use these types of social media so much that they invest more time into looking at and posting things on social media than they do on interacting with people in their ‘offline lives’. They will spend hours in front of a screen looking through pictures and comments that people have posted, posting about their lives and what they have been up to. People also like to filming things they do so they can post or send the video on social media rather than enjoy the experience whilst they are in it. It’s a disappointing world we live in when people want to film the things they enjoy and look at them through a screen rather than enjoy the moment and see things through their own eyes. One good example of this is when Adele was performing in front of thousands of people and she asked the person filming to stop and enjoy her concert now rather than just filming it all. (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/31/adele-tells-fan-to-stop-filming-gig-and-enjoy-it-in-real-life) Another negative about social media is that people are becoming lazier. Less people are actually making an effort to meet up with friends or visit family members because they can talk to them online using Facebook and Twitter. This is decreasing the amount of people who have good social skills as people spend so much time online not talking to people around them or only talking to people online, which gives them the chance to deliberate and perfect their response whilst hiding behind the screen of a computer or phone, rather than gaining the social skills to be able to make friends or communicate effectively with other people. Some people won’t even go down the stairs in their house to ask another family member a question but instead will message them using social media to save them getting up and walking from one room to another.

https://www.pinterest.com/izzysilvacarlos/obesity/

The increase in technology has also increased the amount of obesity that the UK has. Journalist, Maggie Fox, from NBC News has said “It comes up with a surprisingly consistent statistic: For every 10 percent rise in what a country spends on information and communications technology, there’s a 1 percent increase in obesity rates.” This is showing that the improved and increasing amount of social media available to people is affecting their health. This could be because instead of children going out to play with friends or adults going for a jog, they are watching one of the thousands of television channels available or sat all day typing on social media instead. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-jordan/technology-health_b_2341100.html) Unless there is a change then this will only carry on increasing.

Overall I feel that the introduction and the enhancement of the role that technology has played has been beneficial to the people using it. It has given people other means of contacting friends and family that they may not have had the change to so easily before. However has had more of a negative impact on some people as they are becoming obsessed with the use of his technology, ignoring the world they are living in and decreasing the amount of social skills that they once had before. The fact that obesity is also rising in both adults and children also means that there needs to be changes in the way that technology is used otherwise there will be a rise in the amount of people with conditions such as type two diabetes and other illnesses that could be life threatening. 

Question 3: The tabloid press refers to them as benefit scroungers. Politicians might not use these words but refer continually to 'hard working families' Do you think there are too many shirkers? Is this economically sustainable?

The people of the United Kingdom, in recent years have been seen to become increasingly reliant on the governments welfare system, this may be because of the 2009 recession that most felt the effects of. Or it may be because of the changing attitude towards hard work, many now see the current welfare system as a cushion preventing them from living in absolute poverty. The welfare system is now becoming stretched and stretching the UK financially and therefore the question of whether it is sustainable has come to the forefront of many politicians and people minds.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11727751/Budget-2015-
George-Osborne-slashes-welfare-but-gives-Britain-a-pay-rise.html

In some ways I feel that there are too many shirkers rather than workers in the United Kingdom. One factor that could be affecting this is the how easy it is to claim Benefits and the amount of money given out to them. The average amount of money a benefits claimant gets per week is £72.01.  This, per month is 288.04 and per annum £3456.48, whilst this may seem a very small amount it is in some cases more than what could be earned in a part-time minimum wage job, this is where the issue because controversial. In 2012 a staggering 2.53 million (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117) people (16+) claimed this type of assistance. Using the statistics above this meant the government were spending £8.745 billion in 2012 on this specific type of benefit alone. Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne has recently been quoted as saying "Welfare spending is not sustainable and it crowds out spending on things like education and infrastructure that are vital to securing the real welfare of the people”. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/budget/11727751/Budget-2015-George-Osborne-slashes-welfare-but-gives-Britain-a-pay-rise.html) Supporting my argument that economically our welfare spending is becoming too much. People also have pre-conceived judgments about people doing certain jobs roles that they do not want to associate themselves with. For example, people look at bin men and dinner ladies in a very negative way. People feel they have a social status to live up to and instead of getting a negatively looked at job and ruin their status, they would rather get benefits and not have a job instead. I feel this could be partially due to the country becoming more materialistic and judgmental of people who are lower than ourselves.
(http://tabulation-tool.dwp.gov.uk/100pc/jsa/ccdate/deps/a_cawklyamt_r_ccdate_c_deps.html)

Even though the amount of money spent on welfare is very high, it is not always given continuously to the same people. Most people who require welfare only need this support for a short amount of time. People go in and out of poverty quickly because they are only temporarily unemployed and requiring help from the government through welfare benefits. This means that although the amount of money spent is very high, it is being distributed to the people who need it most at that point in time and not always a way of living forever. Some also work hard to try and get themselves off welfare benefits as the look to improving their future and in turn their family’s future too. Also because of a lack of adequate education, children from a poorer background are being forgotten and, therefore, left behind in the education and employment systems that schools are trying to prepare them for. A lot of people in high up roles within the education system look at young people who are from a family who do claim benefits and ignore them rather than encouraging them to expand their learning to get them out of the vicious circle of going  onto benefits themselves. Head of the Commons Education Committee said "Poor white British children now come out of our schools with worse qualifications than equally poor children in any other ethnic group.” (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/20/dont-blame-poor-children-for-poor-education) This provides evidence that the government and education system are both letting down the younger generation of this country, leaving them unable to provide benefits for the economy and their own futures.

To conclude, I feel that the amount of shirkers are not making it economically sustainable for the country to carry on developing, but instead will fall backwards once the younger generation becoming working age. This will be due to the amount of money that the government will be paying out in welfare benefits as it will be higher than the amount of money being paid in through taxes, due to less people will be willing to work or have the qualifications to do so. I feel that the government, education system and the parents who are consistently on welfare have the blame for this. The education provided under the current system and curriculum is not beneficial for poor children to progress to gain qualifications as they are being ignored by schools and left to fall back on benefits that the government hand out instead of gaining qualification to help secure preeminent work. I also feel it is partially the parents fault as they do not seem to want to help their children succeed when maybe they fell down in their own lives, instead they carry on not looking for work and claiming benefits. Parents are the biggest role models to their children and letting them think it is ok to not work and instead redeem benefits the whole of their lives is not economically sustainable a the amount of government money spent on welfare will only rise from £8.745 billion to even higher in years to come.

Question 2 - Why are young people so apathetic about serious issues these days?

Young people, especially in today’s modern society, are viewed as apathetic and disinterested in serious issues. Examples of this can be seen in the political sphere and also in matters regarding global warming, economics and recent financial downturn regarding the value of the British Sterling post Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/11/
london-rioters-2011-anger-inequality-distrust-police

One reason why I think young people are so apathetic about serious issues these days is because of the amount of different type of media we have and the debate about whether we can trust them and everything that they say. Media in today’s society and even many years ago from today, have a way of manipulating information to portray a chosen feeling or certain representation of a person, culture or a situation.  One example of this is in the 2011 riots when groups of people across the United Kingdom went onto the streets to protest about the innocent shooting of Mark Duggan in London. Many of the media’s coverage, whether on television, in newspapers or online over exaggerated the amount of violence and people involved or injured in the riots. The media focused on one incident which was the worst and most violent out of them all to cover. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14434318) They ignored the fact that there was thousands of people peacefully protesting about Duggan’s death but instead focused on the smaller number of people who were setting fire to houses, cars and stealing goods from retailers. Because of this, many people believed that all the protests across the country were extremely violent and that they had all gotten out of hand however this was not the case. Many places across the UK had peaceful protests and no violent incidents occurred. But because of the large media coverage on violence only partially associated with the Mark Duggan killing, many people believed the media’s representation of the protester which had been portrayed as violent, angry and disruptive. Because of this I feel that young people do not listen to what the media has to say as much and instead think that they are over-exaggerating the events occurring.

Another reason I consider to be why young people are more apathetic these days about serious situations is due to the type and lack of education that young people are getting. In schools, pupils are taught maths, English, science but they do not touch on life skills enough in my opinion. Many young people come out of education not know what a mortgage is or how the exchange rates will affect them, most of them couldn’t tell you who the main political parties are. Knowing how to do maths and write eloquently is very important however, young people also need to be taught about things they will encounter in a daily basis once they have grown up and decide to leave home. Because they haven’t learnt about most of these topics, they cannot understand or make judgments on the issues that are appearing in our modern society. I feel that teaching has lost its track and has become more about getting good grades in desirable subject like maths and English rather than setting young people up to be able to exceed in life and have the life skills they need to be able to manage their finances. I feel that OFSTED do not help either as they rate school whilst mainly looking at the statistics of the amount of pupils who passes their exams rather than the range in styles of teaching to suite each child and the ability of the school to give them an education to not only give them qualifications but to also help them with general life skills to better them in the future so they can understand serious issues that could occur in today modern society.

Although we, as young people, are often described as apathetic there are some serious issues in which we showed great interest. First and foremost the 2016 Brexit vote, the voter turnout amongst young people was the highest it has been in recent times. (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high)  The reason for this, I believe, is the fact that this vote would nevertheless effect our futures, in economic and social areas. Young people have also shown great concern in areas such as Terrorism.  The reason for this is due to the rise of ISIS and recent attacks across Europe in the past 12 months, we as young people showed interest and sympathy in this area because it was a real threat to us as individuals but also our loved ones. So using the examples of Brexit and terrorism you can see how we are not always apathetic to serious situations especially when they have the ability to affect us directly.

To conclude, in some ways the mind-set of young people these days do give off the impressions that they are not apathetic to serious situations, however, there are contributing factors in their life which have made it harder for them to actually understand the background and topics of which these situations are based. The medias representations also confuse and mislead the general public and younger people so they cannot always be trusted. This means that younger people do not know what they can and cannot believe and have no other source of information that they can turn to, to get help and facts when deciding on an opinion; so instead chose not to have one and ignore the situations. 

Question 1 - I think i lead a fairly sustainable lifestyle.

In this question I will be looking at the way that I am and am not living my life in a sustainable way. Sustainability when looking at environmental science is ‘the quality of not being harmful to the environmentor depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance’ (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/sustainability).  There are different ways of having a sustainable lifestyle and these can affect the environment, the economy and also the people living in an area differently.

One way I feel that I lead a sustainable lifestyle is by the way I use my water. Because I live in the east of the United Kingdom, water has to be pumped from the West of the country to the east of the country to provide clean drinking water in this area. I feel that I do not take this for granted and try and use water in the best and most economical way possible. When using water I think about how much I use; I have a shower on a morning and not a bath as the average shower uses 62 liters of water compared to the average bath which uses 80 liters of water. (http://www.waterwise.org.uk/news.php/11/showers-vs.-baths-facts-figures-and-misconceptions).

This way I am not using up unnecessary amounts of water which could be used in other ways or saved for a later date. I also have a water but in my garden to collect and store rain water so it can sometimes be used instead of clean drinking water. This means I can water the plants in the garden and wash my car with having to use clean water. Instead I am re-using the water from the rain, saving and reducing the amount of clean water I use for an activity which does not require it.

Another way I feel I am trying to live a sustainable lifestyle is by buying (where I can) produce that has been grown in England. When shopping, myself and my family always look for products that have been made or grown in the United Kingdom. This means there are not as many food miles in the products we buy, and therefore reducing the amount of pollution going into the atmosphere when transporting the products from their origin to the shops. I feel this is my contribution to helping decrease the amount of global warming in the world but is also beneficial for the local economy too. Local produce tends to cost a small amount more than produce cheaply bought from some other countries as companies look for countries that can supply cheap labor so they can reduce the cost of their product, but still gain a large profit. By buying locally sourced products I may be paying a bit more, however the money is going into the British farming industry, meaning they are able to carry on farming crops and livestock, keeping the farming industry in the United Kingdom more sustainable.

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2015/09/us-emissions-test-question-the-future-of-diesel/

However, one way I feel I am not living a sustainable lifestyle is by the use of my car. I drive my car more than 50 miles per day to and from university, work and around the area I live. This means I use around £35 (around 30 gallons of diesel) every two weeks. Although my car is very economic compared to many other cars, this still means I am using up 30 gallons of diesel and putting it into the atmosphere every two weeks; that’s 840 gallons on average every year. I put all of that burnt fuel into the atmosphere each year and will do every year till I stop driving in around 60-65 years. The amount of harmful chemicals I pollute the atmosphere with will be contributing to the amount of global warming happening. The increasing in global temperatures, melting of the ice caps and the rising sea level will all have been contributed to by myself driving to the shops or to work every week. This is not sustainable as diesel and petrol are both becoming harder to find and we are running out of supplies quickly. Not only this but the amount of fuel I burn meaning there I am not looking after the environment of the earth, meaning I am not helping sustaining the future for humans on earth. For example, over 80% of land in Bangladesh is under 1 meter above sea level. Due to ice caps melting the sea level is rising by 3.2mm a year. (http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-sea-level-rise/) This is not helping the people of Bangladesh as they will be more readily hit by flooding and feel worse effects from storm surges and tsunamis. This is not helping sustain the agricultural lives that the majority of people in Bangladesh live.

http://www.tucmag.net/technology/has-technology-caused-society-to-progress-or-regress/

Another way I feel I am not living a sustainable lifestyle is by the amount of electronic products I have and use on a daily basis. In this modern age most people have mobile phones, televisions, microwaves, laptops; the list goes on. All of these products use electricity when on or need charging by using electricity. This means that lots of power is having to be generated to be able to use or charge these products up. Because all the electronic products I have, my house needs a lot electricity to be supplied. This means power stations are having to burn more fuel to meet the demands of each household, sending more pollution into the atmosphere and, again, increasing the impacts of climate change of the earth.

I feel that in some ways I do live a sustainable life, however, overall my lifestyle isn’t sustainable. I feel that people of my age will struggle to live with a more sustainable lifestyle than I do as we have grown up around using computers every day, mobile phones being readily available and driving to get everywhere. We haven’t lived a part of our lives where we could not call someone at the click of a finger or get to a different city easily. However, I also feel that it is nearly impossible to live a fully sustainable lifestyle in this day and age as technology is in improving and people are taking advantage of this and becoming lazy so would rather take the easy option that the more economical option. People are also becoming more materialistic so need the latest phone and the biggest television, even if this is at the cost of the environment around them.